


Red Feather

by ChosenOfKagami



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Demons, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Past Semi Eita/Shirabu Kenjirou, Side Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou - Freeform, Side Kawanishi Taichi/Shirabu Kenjirou, Side Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou - Freeform, Side Oikawa Tooru/Iwaizumi Hajime, Side Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi - Freeform, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9219365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChosenOfKagami/pseuds/ChosenOfKagami
Summary: Their world was reduced to a single home, of broken windows and forgotten bodies.Their world was a sanctuary and a hell, ruled by the feather and stained in crimson.Semi Eita awoke in a strange, strange place, filled with strange, strange people.Semi Eita found himself at the bottom of a monster's food chain, with no way out.





	1. My Friend From the Pool

**Author's Note:**

> 'Cause everyone was just begging for a survival horror-inspired Semi-centric TenSemi fic, right? That was just. In such popular demand. I know. Well, no more fussing, because here it is. At last. The fic absolutely everyone wanted. I've done it. You're welcome.
> 
> (I'm sorry.)

Cold.

The space before him was hard, and cold to the touch, and he couldn't see a thing.

When he'd come to, he was on his back, bathed in darkness. Trying to remember the last thing he did to wind up like this had been proven difficult. He knew that his room was never so pitch black, and the surface he’d woken on did _not_ feel like his bed.

When he tried to sit up, his body felt weak, and he found that the cool glass surrounded him on all sides, closing him in like a casket.

He pressed his hands against the icy surface every which way, feeling for an escape. The more he searched blindly, the more rapid his breathing grew. How much air did he even have in here? How long had he been there? How much oxygen was already used up?

He tried to calm himself, tried to steady his breathing, so that maybe he could hold it for a moment. The panic was making that a difficult task, however.

The glass was smooth, for the most part, but when his fingers trailed over a flaw in its perfection, he returned to that spot, tracing over it a few times. There was a crack, a thin line between two curved panes. He pushed at it, to no avail.

He resorted to the next best thing, putting all thoughts on preserving oxygen aside to scream for help.

His savior came minutes later with a click, followed by a flicker of light overhead.

The source of that light, however, was hard to make out with the thick layer of dust coating topside of the glass.

Another click, and the table he was on jerked beneath him. He sucked in a sharp breath and went still, and then the crack in the glass above him parted open.

The light was nothing but a single bulb, hanging from a wire from the center of the ceiling. He kept in his breath for a few more seconds, which he swore was really ten to twenty minutes.

When he didn't hear another sound, or see any signs of movement, he pushed himself up to sit.

The was old, with a stone floor and brick walls that had seen better days, and probably hadn't seen a broom or duster in months.

The table he was on was close against the wall, and in the center of the room, was another, covered with stacks of papers and books and bottles of pale colored liquids he couldn't quite place. It looked organized, books stacked neatly and bottles set up in clusters. Organized, but not clean. There was too much dust cloaking it all.

There were more tables, work benches, shelves, all of them adorned with jars and half-melted candles and other things he didn't really recognize. They lined the walls of the room, and how he could even _breathe_ with all the dust in there was a miracle.

Despite the organization of all its contents, it was possibly the dirtiest room he'd ever seen, and that trail of thought led him to contemplate how many rooms he could even _recall_ seeing, to begin with. How much of _anything_ could he recall?

He could remember his bedroom, and the rest of his tiny, single apartment just fine, which was only more confusing as to why he wasn't waking up _there,_ instead.

What else could he recall? His name? Semi Eita. Friends? Family? He didn't have a lot of close friends. Well, really none he _considered_ close, not since high school. He had a large family, but he rarely saw them lately outside of occasional, obligatory events.

He could remember, he was quickly realizing, a lot. Everything about himself, in fact. At least, everything but _why he was waking up in some kind of display case,_ like Snow White waking up out of sheer impatience because her prince took too long.

He didn't have a prince or princess, or really want one, for that matter. He really just wanted to know what was going on, and to know if this was just some weird, lucid dream, or not.

He swung his legs over the side of the table. There were no signs of who might have turned on the lights, or opened the glass. There were two doors in the room, one across from him, and the other to his right, but both were closed.

"Hello?" His voice felt foreign to him, like he hadn't used it in years, even though he knew he’d just been using it to yell only seconds ago.

Still, no response came.

He slid from his seat, toes brushing up the thin layer of dust.

His legs felt just as weak as the rest of him, and he could feel them protesting at the weight of his body as he tried to stand. He held onto the table for balance while he readjusted himself. He wobbled, for a moment, and didn't look up from his feet until he righted himself.

When he did look up, he saw tracks within the dust. Footprints, human ones, overlapped each other in a trail from the table to the door across the room.

He couldn't imagine that they'd be his own. He couldn't imagine getting himself into this situation, whatever it was, willingly.

What was it he’d been doing before this? He searched himself, hoping to find some clue to jog that memory, but it only left him more confused.

The clothes he was wearing weren’t his. The simple, beige shirt and pants hung way too loosely on him. He wasn’t even sure if they were _supposed_ to be beige, or if they were just so old that the white no longer appeared white. They didn’t exactly _feel_ clean, the more he focused on them. So, how long had he been wearing them?

He searched for a mirror, or anything of the sort. There was a metal dish on the table, beneath some suspicious bottles. It’d have to do. He had to brush aside the dust, and the metal distorted his reflection, to an extent, but nothing about him seemed particularly off, otherwise. His hair still looked the same. Pale blonde, but dark brown at the tips, because dyeing his hair had apparently become a staple for him ever since Yamagata had dared him to do it in high school.

His face looked about the same, but the image in the plate was so unclear that he had to run his fingers over his chin, just to be sure. No stubble. Okay.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, like he’d look at his reflection and see a face full of hair and dark roots coming through his dye. _“You’ve been here for years, you’re not who you think you are,”_ or some bullshit like that.

He set the plate back down, but not without a tremble in his fingers.

 _Think, think,_ he told himself, but the room was too unfamiliar. Too alien, like the clothes on his back, and the strange sensation he felt in his chest in time with his heartbeat. He could hear it pounding out of him, crying for an answer that could calm it, even a little.

He didn’t remember his own heartbeat feeling so foreign.

He swallowed, and reached for the stack of papers, a little ways away from the bottles. He slipped the topmost page toward himself, and scanned the first line once, twice. The fact that it was Japanese, the only thing in this place he _could_ understand, still didn’t serve to sooth him quite enough.

 _“It would seem that demons are susceptible to common illnesses, just as mankind,”_ it read.

He found that reading it once or twice wasn’t enough to let the words sink in. Specifically, the fifth word in.

_“Demons.”_

He mouthed a silent, _“What the fuck?”_ and continued reading on.

_“While I believe that they likely have their own set of illnesses, separate from those that plague humans, my research has proved that there are similarities among them. This subject, in particular, appears to have something akin to an allergic reaction to certain foods and substances. Whether or not such a reaction can kill the beast, or whether or not it can be killed at all, are worth further investigating. Doing so will be difficult to research, however, with only one subject available to me, for the time being.”_

The babble went on for the whole page, and Semi was left wondering if the entire stack contained nonsense like this.

He repeated the word over and over in his head. _“Demons.”_

He pinched himself, and was disappointed to find that the action did, in fact, hurt. Part of him hoped that maybe it _was_ possible to feel in your dreams, and that he’d just been lied to his whole life.

He plucked a few more papers off the stack, skimming over their contents. Each was just as ridiculous as the one before.

_“Exposing the subject to certain substances seems to keep it at bay. It has grown weak, and while I hope that this does not interfere with my tests, it is necessary to keep both the subject, and myself, alive during these trials.”_

Semi began pull papers from different levels of the stack. Even when he looked over the ones toward the middle of the mess, he was left just as dumbfounded.

Demons, illnesses, bloodwork….

_“I have narrowed down my search for a human subject to a select few...”_

A click came from the door, across from the table he’d woken from, and Semi jerked his attention from the paper to the source of the sound.

The door had been opened just a crack, and no more. Semi stood in place, frozen aside from the way his fingers shook and creased the edges of the paper in hand.

“Hello?” he managed, again, but his voice was just as hoarse and strange on his tongue as the time before. And, still, no answer came.

Very slowly, very carefully, he set the paper back down, and allowed his legs to carry him toward the door. He stopped half way between it and the table, however, to search for something he might use to defend himself. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but he needed some sense of security.

He kept facing the door as he retreated toward the back of the room. He found himself up against a row of shelves near where he’d awoken, and he patted the space behind him. Below the shelves, were drawers, and he bent down to pull one open. He tried to do so quietly, but the creak of the old wheels was inevitable.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and when the door remained still, only then did he go through the drawer’s contents.

Medical supplies.

Gloves, alcohol wipes, bandages, bottles of liquids he was actually familiar with, unlike whatever was sitting up on that table….

Needles, syringes, scalpels, something that looked like pliers….

Semi found himself shaking again, and the urge to strip and search his body for scars was hard to resist, but there was still the matter of whoever, or whatever was on the other side of that door. Said door, still hadn’t moved, still only had a small crack of space between itself and the frame.

He went for the largest knife he could find, and tried not to think about the fact that it looked _too_ large to be in a drawer with what looked like relatively normal medical supplies. It wasn’t quite a butcher’s knife or anything, but it could certainly be used in a kitchen, and was probably _not_ meant to be used on a person.

He held onto it like a lifeline, and stared the door down. He really, _really_ did not want to venture past it. Perhaps the room’s other door would be a better option. Maybe there weren’t any potential threats waiting on the other side of that.

Semi soon found that said other door was, in fact, locked.

Of course it was.

So, unless he wanted to sit around trying to take it apart by the hinges, he was really only left with two options: sit and wait for Potential Bad Guy to quit playing the taunting game, and come in after him, or go through the door Potential Bad Guy was potentially waiting behind.

Honestly, he kind of wanted to go the “break down the other door” route, but that would require turning his back, and maybe getting said back stabbed or injected with a suspicious liquid via one of any of the almost equally suspicious syringes he’d just discovered.

He found himself approaching the already-open door before he’d even realized he’d made up his mind, heart racing far too fast, and far too loud as he rested a hand on the knob. His knuckles went white as he tightened his hold on the knife and pulled the door open.

The loud, drawn-out creaking of the thing didn’t serve to make him any calmer, either. Nor did the fact that everything beyond the doorway was entirely pitch black.

He squinted through the darkness up ahead. Whoever had turned the lights on in this room before, apparently wasn’t too concerned with turning them on elsewhere.

There was, however, a tiny box left sitting in the small amount of light fading out from the room he stood in. A box of matches, he realized. Even as he bent down to retrieve them, he kept his gaze upward, cautious, and expectant of the unexpected. He struck a match against the box.

He realized too late that the ill fitted pants didn’t come equipped with pockets, but like hell he was going to leave an entire box of the only light source he had back here while he wandered around in the dark.

When he finally left the room, it was with a strip of gauze wrapped around his upper arm, and the match box tucked into it as a makeshift pocket. His steps were slow, careful of the space before him. The only good the tiny flame of the match seemed to do was keep him from walking into walls, but he supposed that was better than being completely blind. He’d have preferred a bit more warmth than what it provided, too. This dark place was no less chilling than the room he’d just left.

He inhaled, long and deep, and pushed forward, because wandering in any other direction was sure to get him more lost than he already was. His exhale was even more slow, a desperate attempt to remain steady, to not make more sound than necessary. As if whoever or whatever was out there wasn’t already aware of his presence. As if he hadn’t been screaming for help just moments ago.

It was silly, really, to even attempt to be stealthy at all. If there were any threats lingering here, then he was a dead man no matter how cautious he stayed.

The first thing he came into contact with was not the end of the room, or hall, or whatever it was, but rather, a row of iron poles, all of them standing up past the height of his legs, connected by a single, horizontal bar. A fence. Indoors. Sure. Beyond it, something shimmered.

He hadn’t heard any sloshing, or anything that he’d associate with a body of water, but the way the surface past the fence glistened in the small light of the match surely didn’t say “ground” to him. He began to question if he really was still indoors.

While he couldn’t make out a ceiling or anything of the sort, he didn’t see stars, either. He felt no breeze. It was _too_ dark. The only thing he was sure of was that he was only growing more confused and lost with every step he took.

Semi gripped the fence rail, blade between his raised index and middle fingers, and leaned past the edge, arm with the light extended far past it, over the water. It would be nice if it led to a way out, into a lake or something, but it was too eerily still for that, and he wasn’t one for jumping into pitch black, unknown waters, anyway. Campground lakes and neighborhood pools at night didn’t count.

He withdrew his hand, but kept the other firm on the rail. The fence, at the very least, offered a newfound sense of space and direction. He picked a side, his right, and followed along the structure, his hand sliding along the railing as he went. He only loosened his hold on it when bits of peeling, rusted metal began to bite at his fingers along the way.

What the fence led him to was, not a wall, because why the hell would he be allowed to find the end of this godforsaken room _now?_ What he found instead was more fence, splitting off from the rail he’d been following. This time, it stood between him and more floor, but this floor was metal, full of holes, and more rust. Still, that was more inviting than the eerily calm body of water to his left, so he pulled himself up onto the rail and swung over to the other side.

The metal echoed beneath his feet, forced the water to ripple, and when he brought the match closer to the floor, he could see the flame reflected in water through the holes. A bridge, then. An indoor bridge in an indoor… whatever this place was.

There were iron rails along either side of him, now, and with one end being cut off by the water, it really only gave him one direction to follow.

Staying quiet on the bridge proved impossible very quickly. The light _pang pang_ sound of his feet against the metal seemed inevitable, no matter how soft he tried to keep his steps.

The bridge eventually came to a fork against, thank god, a wall. One part of the fork led right back to the side of the room he’d come from, to solid, stone ground. The other option continued the bridge, bending it into an L-shape that followed along the wall above the water. Semi went with the latter, two fingers trailing the bumps and cracks of the worn wall, safe from more cuts to be caused by rusted iron.

Halfway down this new piece of bridge, was a large, heavy duty, metal door. A chill crawled from his fingers to his spine as he grazed it. He made for the handle with the desperation of a starved man gunning for a buffet. He clutched it, its edges digging into his skin, and turned downward.

Or, at least he’d tried.

Disappointment didn’t begin to cover the breath that left him when the handle refused to budge. He tried with both palms and pushed all of his weight down onto the thing, but to no avail.

“Come _on,”_ he whispered, trying time and time again, but it might as well have just been there for decoration.

Semi stepped back from the door, bumping against the railing behind him as he stared down the barrier. Something beside it caught his eye, then, and he severely hoped that it wasn’t a useless wall decoration, too.

He reached forward, and pushed up on an oversized switch beside the doorframe.

There was a long hiss of electricity, then the slow-building hum of something powering on. He heard the flickering buzz of something behind him, and the _ping ping_ of a lightbulb struggling to stay lit. The first stutter of light was weak, but it was something better than his lousy little match. More followed, then, and when he turned around, there were several bulbs, dangling from the ceiling much like the one in the first room, all of them suspended at different heights and blinking in and out in an attempt to light the place.

And, even with something to illuminate it, he still had no idea what sort of room this was supposed to be.

It looked like a pier, he thought, with the metal bridge branching off to different points out over the water. He realized then that the water took up the majority of the room, and it was almost as black in the light as it was in the dark, which led him to question if it really was water at all.

He gave the door one last try, the smallest sliver of hope that the power had unlocked it somehow dying with the failed attempt. He huffed the smallest of huffs, then blew out his now-useless match.

The bridge split into another fork where he stood, one path continuing down the wall, the other extending out about halfway to the center of the body of water. At its end, was a small rowboat, with a single paddle inside.

Peculiar, he thought, because there wasn’t really anywhere to go with it. There was more water, untouched by the bridge, sure, but what was the point? The room was far larger than it had any business being, and this was way larger than any indoor or outdoor pool he’d ever seen in person. Maybe it wasn’t Olympic-length, but it was still ridiculous.

One section of the bridge led to a thin set of spiral stairs, twisting their way up to a catwalk that had apparently been suspended over him this entire time.

Being that there were no other doors on the floor outside of the stubborn-ass, possibly-fake one, and the one he’d come through, he had to hope that the catwalk led to another exit.

So, stairs it was.

He tucked the match back into his makeshift holder, and started for the staircase. The creak that came with the first step was far from reassuring. When he swore he heard a splash of something, he whipped his head around. He told himself he imagined the single ripple expanding from the center of the pool.

He climbed up the steel steps, skipping over the ones that looked too rusted to be safe, or the ones that had already broken through. The catwalk looked about just as sturdy, with some of the supports tarnished with age, and patches of floorwork fallen loose from their screws and bolts.

Getting cut up from a rusty old railing was still a concern, but not quite as much as falling through a suspended walkway, so he took the risk of a future infected hand and latched onto the rail for the time being.

Much to his relief, there was, in fact, another door waiting for him. It looked heavy, much like the last, though smaller in size, and he didn’t like the small gap between it and the catwalk. What he also didn’t like, was that there was a message written on the door, all sloppy in hard-to-read writing, in, of all things, some kind of sticky-looking, red substance. It was undeniably red _,_ too. Undeniably fresh. Semi told himself the metallic scent in the air was from the structures of the room, and not the message in front of him.

_“Where’s the key, where’s the key?_

_It won’t be found so easily,_

_If you take a plunge, you just might see,_

_A dance with death will set you free!”_

The dumbfounded and mildly disturbed _“What?”_ left Semi’s lips before he could really wrap his head around the message. In truth, he could wrap his head around it about as well as he could the papers on demon bullshit from the other room. That being... not very well.

He backed away from the door, and first searched for a sign of whoever wrote the damned thing. No such luck.

Then, he turned to peer over the edge of the catwalk, down at the small boat, undisturbed in the black water. From where he stood, in the occasional flicker of the light above the vessel, he was pretty sure he could see more red chicken scratch.

That sat about as well with him as anything else today.

With a small curse and a deep breath, he descended back down the steps, and down the path that led to the boat. It was wooden, and worn with age, but still afloat nonetheless. There was only rope, and a single bench to sit on inside, only large enough for one person. In front of it, where one’s feet might go, was another mess of red writing, smeared in places in the rush it had probably been written in.

_“What to do, what to do?_

_Our friend likes eel, and snapper, too,_

_Find him one for him to chew,_

_And maybe then he won’t eat you!”_

Semi was pretty neutral to poetry. He liked music. He could enjoy reading a rhyme or two. This childish stuff didn’t do much for him, though. Especially not when it was written in what really, honestly did look like blood.

He was none too keen on sitting in a boat with blood smeared all over its inside, either. Nor was he excited to find out what “friend” the rhyme was referring to.

No. Fuck this. Fuck all of this with the sharpest thing he could find. The knife, probably. Maybe one of those syringes.

He jerked around, glancing to each and every door. “What the _hell_ is this bullshit?!” he called, casting his gaze up to the catwalk. The room just felt so, so empty. “Tell me what the _fuck_ you want from me so I can go home!”

Silence.

“I _know_ someone’s there! I know you’re listening!”

Then, not quite silence.

Another splash, and Semi spun back to the boat, which was not nearly as still as it had been before.

Ripples were forming out from the center of the water, proving that, no, he _didn’t_ imagine what he’d seen before.

And then, there were more ripples, one after the other, forming a trail in the water that slithered its way toward the dock.

The room was not quite as empty as it had seemed.

And he, maybe, should have stuck with the old “stealthy and quiet” plan.

He backed himself down the dock, down the direction he’d came, all while watching the ripples come closer to the edge at an almost alarming rate. By comparison, he was probably retreating a bit too slowly. He especially thought this, when a large something splashed out from beneath the surface, landing on the metal floor with a pang and a sickening, squishing sound.

It looked like a slug, maybe, but it was about as wide as his face, and the rest of its body trailed down from the floor into the dark water. It began to slip against the metal, back into the pool, but with another splash, it came lurching forward, catching itself on the ridges of the flooring to pull itself forward. More followed, and as Semi began to backtrack faster, nearly stumbling in his steps, he could see that they were not separate creatures, but the appendages of one, single entity.

The tentacles, large and slick with black water, dragged something larger out from the pool. They slapped against metal and curled around the bars of the railing, their muddied purples and greens only noticeable in their otherwise brownish skin when the lights overhead would flicker in unison.

There were gaps in the skin. Holes that he couldn’t see into, and didn’t dare get close enough to try, all clustered in groups of three further down the tentacles, like empty faces that had been screaming in silence for an eternity. With every movement they made, more blackish water oozed out from them.

Semi’s body jerked when he backed into a rail, and he just about lost his footing trying to turn away from it, bolting for the room he’d woken in. Right now, it was the only door he was sure he could get through.

His footing slipped with the next turn, and he fell to his knees. The holes and rust of the metal scraped at his skin, but he payed no mind as he frantically crawled himself back up until a run for the door.

He could hear the monster growing closer, with heavy _schlip_ s and other slimy, grotesque sounds much louder than they were before.

He didn’t look over his shoulder. He felt stone beneath his feet again, and kept his eyes trained on the door, with the exception of a few short-lived observations. One being that there was a switch, presumably a light switch, right next to the door. Of course there was.

He swung the door open, and quite literally slipped inside before catching a glimpse of the monster at full. Tentacles oozing with black dragged a large, bulbous body across the ground, all of it covered with those trios of holes, the skin around them wrinkled and deformed in ways that looked far too much like agonized, human faces.

He slammed the door shut and went for the first sturdy-ish piece of furniture he could find, a bookcase, and got right to pushing the thing in front of the door. There was a thud from the other side before he even got the case there, and he could feel his heart in his throat as he struggled to conjure up more force, more speed, more of _anything_ he had in him.

He got the case in front of the barrier, and upon his release, the whole thing shook, books and knickknacks falling out of their places and scattering dust. He stepped back, trembling, watching the case shake with every bang and thud on the other side of the door.

There were eleven bangs before silence, and then the sound of something slimy dragging itself away, more distant until Semi couldn’t hear anything at all.

He let out an unsteady breath, but he didn’t know if it was with relief. He felt relieved, maybe, if only mildly, but he didn’t think a single bookshelf was going to hold up against _whatever_ that thing was for good.

And, if that didn’t get to him first, starvation likely would.

That thought left him silent, for a moment, still staring at the bookcase with a look that could only be described as lost. He wanted to yell, to scream, to demand or beg whoever was responsible for this to give him an explanation, or to let him go, or just _get whatever the hell they were planning over with._ Holding back that urge, instead, left him with a pounding head and heart, and a stinging in his eyes that felt close to tears.

He found himself smacking each side of his face, trying to snap out of his daze, or maybe hoping deep down that there was still a chance of waking up from this in his own bed, safe and sound, free of tentacle creatures and eerie, rusty rooms.

He looked around the room for any signs of cameras, but there was still only the single, dim light hanging from the ceiling. Any other forms of electricity appeared non existent, at least in this particular room.

 _Maybe they’re hidden,_ he thought, and then found himself pondering the possibility of hidden doorways.

But why would he spend his time feeling up the walls for that, when there was still one other route right in front of him?

The door at the side of the room, while locked, was by no means as threatening or impassable as the heavy metal ones by the water. It was just wood, and its hinges were on the inside, accessible to him.

And he had a particularly small and pointy knife.

Should’ve went with that idea when he thought of it earlier.

He scrambled through drawers and cabinets in search of some other tools. He’d removed a door on two occasions in his life, not counting this one. The first, when he was helping his father remodel their new house, when they’d moved in junior high. The second, when he got locked inside the high school library with Yamagata and Kawanishi in his third year. He had to get creative with whatever he could find laying around the librarian’s desk, then. He could get creative now, too. He’d have less broken rulers in this case, at least.

Deciding the search was taking too much time, even though he was sure there had to be _something_ similar to a hammer laying around with all the strange medical tools, he settled for a moderately heavy book.

He popped the knife tip beneath the head of the pin, and hit the book against it a few times. The knife kept slipping out of place, and he blamed the fact that he had the wrong tools, and not the fact that he was still utterly terrified of something breaking through the other door after him. As if that was a concern to be ashamed of.

Still, he got the job done, and soon the door was clattering to the floor in front of him, sending up a cloud of dust in its landing.

Much to his disappointment, this door didn’t lead to freedom, either. It didn’t even lead to another open room or hallway.

It was a closet. One big enough for the entire door to fit on the floor inside without disturbing too much, but it was still a closet, and didn’t have any extra doors inside to prove helpful in his endeavors.

It also _reeked_ when he stuck his head inside, like something, or several somethings were rotting among the shelves.

He clamped a hand over his mouth and nose, trying not to think about the stench. He ventured inside, despite it, and began to think that maybe “pantry” was a better descriptor than “closet.”

Not that it was a normal pantry by any means.

The jars lining the shelves were full of things that could _maybe_ pass as almost normal to some people. Those things being pickled animal parts, like what he was pretty sure were chicken feet. Or _some_ kind of bird feet.

Then there were more concerning things, like eyeballs, some that looked like they could maybe have been a fish’s, others that looked much too much like a person’s.

He swallowed, and shuddered when that forced him to breathe in more of the foul air.

The jars had papers on them that may have been labels at some point, but they were all faded and peeling, so they did little to answer his questions.

One jar had some kind of lizards all crammed into it. They were no longer preserved, all shriveled and boney. Another had what looked like the head to something, but he couldn’t figure out what it was, and didn’t really want to know, either. There were other things wrapped in cloths and hanging from the ceiling and shelves. Bits of meat, if he had to guess, and possibly the source of the odor.

He pushed his way past a few miscellaneous hanging maybe-meats, and found stacks of boxes blocking the shelf at the end of the pantry. Some had faded labels, much like everything else in the pantry. Others read things like, “Discard by…” followed by a date that had yet to come, even though the box looked worn by a few years. “Do Not Eat.” “Do Not Open.” “Not For Human Consumption,” followed by some strange symbols or combinations of letters he didn’t recognize.

One box in particular, had a crude drawing of something like an octopus on it.

He reached for that one, hesitating before doing so much as nudging the top with his finger, for fear that something would break out and coil itself around his arm.

He braced himself and pulled the lid open, and it was probably the first thing he’d come across in this place so far that opened with such ease.

The smell that rose from the inside was less easy to handle.

Semi stumbled back, turning his head and swallowing back what threatened to come up his throat at the odor. Rotten. Whatever was inside, it was definitely rotten, like an animal had been left to perish inside.

He coughed a few times, bracing himself to face the box again. He still covered his mouth, and held his breath once the coughing and gagging was over with, and turned to the container with a hateful look in his eyes. Part of him wanted to kick the damn thing just for assaulting him like this.

But he didn’t kick it. Instead, he leaned over it for a better view. It didn’t _look_ like rotting animals, but then, he wasn’t really sure what he was looking at, to begin with.

The box was full of long tubes of fabric that reminded him of stockings, or the casing used to make sausages. They were stuffed with something, and the ends of them had poorly drawn faces on them. They were strange faces, not quite like a snake’s, but more like the almost-smiles of…

...an eel.

He thought back to the stupid red writing in the boat, and found himself staring back at the octopus drawn on the box. The creature out there was no normal octopus, but maybe it had been something close to one at some point.

When he couldn’t find anything else remotely close to an eel or snapper, he decided that the contents of that box were his only hope.

He lifted the old thing into his arms, keeping his head turned away as much as he could to avoid the stench. He set it back down near the bookcase with a thud, and cringed at the way the makeshift eels jostled at the fall.

So, in theory, he could toss these out there, and that horrific monster would just… eat them? Instead of him? It had horrible taste, if that was the case, but he wasn’t going to judge when the only other option on the menu was himself.

He plucked one of the things by the face, trying to just keep a hold on the fabric without having to feel whatever was crammed inside of it. The stupid eyes looked like they were taunting him, and he really hoped he didn’t have to actually unwrap any of these to feed the creature. Maybe it would just… eat through the cloth. Just as easily as it would probably eat through his clothes to get to him, given the chance.

His stomach offered a repulsed, sickened sound, only to be drowned out by an even more sickening plop of the eel’s insides falling out through its frayed end, and into the box with the others.

The contents, he could just barely make out, were large chunks of eel and fish, never cooked, but clearly having been sitting around for far too long. Among all of that, there was a third meat, all ground up and mixed in with the fish. It was impossible to tell what sort of creature it had come from, it could have been ground beef, for all he knew, but something about the sight of it made his insides turn and scream a chorus of, _“No, no, no, no….”_

He tried not to think of the possibility that it could be anything _but_ animal meat, and closed the box up so he wouldn’t have to look at it any longer. That didn’t make the smell go away, unfortunately. What was worse was that it was now on his hands, too.

Trying not to continue gagging over it, Semi shoved his weight against the bookcase, freeing up the door once again. He lifted the box back into his arms, and creeked the door open, just enough to peek out into the other room. The creature was still out of the water, dragging itself along the stone floor near the fencing, clearly in search of something.

He wanted to just close the door and curl up in a corner by the table, but unless he could survive off of shelves of rotted food, he was a dead man no matter what path he chose.

Might as well go out with an adventure.

He stepped back out, quietly, but the squeak of the door opening had already given him away. The monster was facing him, or, at least he assumed it was. Determining what part was its front, or if it even had a true face at all, would require a more up-close and personal look, and he wasn’t about to play around with that idea.

“Alright, big guy…” he said, trembling as he lowered the box to the floor in front of him. The creature must have registered something about it, because it hadn’t begun charging after Semi like before, yet. Semi lifted the lid, and fought back bile when he reached into the mess of meats to pluck out another makeshift eel. He dangled the tube of food in the air, and this time nothing came falling out the end of it, thank goodness.

The creature was still, for a moment. Studying him, or what was in his hand, possibly. Semi found himself holding his breath, and the smell probably only had a small part in that, this time.

The monster dragged itself forward, slowly, and it seemed uncharacteristic compared to the way it had charged after Semi before. Of course, that thought came too soon, and it was shortly racing after the promise of food.

Semi tossed one of the “eels” out onto the floor between them, as far as he could manage. To his relief, the monster stopped where it landed. Tentacles pulled the food toward the body, and there was too much movement for Semi to make sense of a mouth or anything of the sort, but its body was leaning forward and lurching in a way that looked like it could maybe be eating.

Good enough.

He tossed another out onto the floor, then pulled out one more eel before kicking the box back into the medical room. The monster followed after the next offering, like Semi wasn’t even _there_ anymore.

He stepped to the side of the door, then, and when the monster finished what was on the floor, he dangled the food in his hands, teasing it. And, when the monster began to crawl, he tossed it into the room with the box and stumbled out of its way.

The monster, apparently no more genius than a dog and a bacon treat, chased after the offering just as it had chased Semi across the docks. A few tentacles lingered out the doorway once it made it inside, and Semi kicked those inside and pulled the door shut after it. His feet were covered in inky, black water, and something slimy, but, hell, he was counting this as an accomplishment.

Now to find his way out before that thing figured out how to open the door.

He hurried back to the boat, and gave the red writing on the inside one seething look before sitting himself down on the bench. As much as he didn’t want to give whoever wrote these dumb rhymes the satisfaction, he couldn’t see any way out but to follow them. Or at least he didn’t want to die trying to find that way.

He paddled out, away from the dock, not that he really knew where he was supposed to be paddling.

The first message made it sound like the key was in the water, but how the hell was he supposed to know _where?_

He stopped paddling and allowed the boat to drift out on its own. He dipped the ends of his fingers into the water, and he couldn’t even see them once they were swallowed by the blackness.

And he was supposed to find a key in this. Sure. That seemed about as reasonable as anything.

He glanced up, and the door was still closed. The monster didn’t seem to be fighting its way out yet.

“I can’t fucking believe I’m doing this….” he murmured, already tying one end of the rope to his ankle, and the other to the hole meant to set the oar in.

He leaned over the edge, staring into the black. He steadied himself, as much as he could, clutched the knife, drew in a deep breath…

And he dived.

And, diving, he realized, may not have been the smartest of ideas, being that he had no clue just how deep the water went. But, then, if that enormous creature could live in this darkness, there had to be room for him, too.

He didn’t dare to open his eyes once he was submerged. He had no idea _why_ this water was black, or if it was even really water to begin with. It sure _felt_ like water, but he wanted it in his eyes about as much as he welcomed shampoo in them. Not like he’d be able to see even if it was harmless, anyway.

He reached out, feeling his way through the liquid. He almost missed wandering around this room in the dark earlier, when he at least had a match, and access to _air_.

It seemed like forever before he even made contact with the floor. When he did, it was rough, like concrete. As he trailed his hands along it, he found a sharp edge and a dip, a quick, sudden transition into deeper waters. Nothing like any of the swimming pools he’d ever seen. Or, well, _not_ seen, in this case.

He followed where the floor led way to a wall, and ventured deeper, never letting his touch stray from it. He’d hoped, so desperately, to find more floor, to find the bottom to this dark hell pool, but what he found first was less on the comforting side.

A hole in the wall, large enough for a person to swim through, and perfectly square in its opening. When his hand slipped inside, he felt no end to the hole, and considered that it might be some sort of tunnel. If that was a case, and if there were more holes like this, then that made this pool something like a labyrinth.

That… seemed about right, considering his luck thus far.

But, one thing at a time. He’d find the bottom of this place, first. If he couldn’t find the key there, he could worry about risky tunnels and whatnot then.

So, he ventured deeper. And deeper. He ventured down until his head began to feel far too light, and just when he began to wonder if the rope was even still attached to the boat, he felt it pull against his ankle. He felt concrete brush against his fingertips once more, but he didn’t have time to inspect the newfound floor.

When he resurfaced, it was with an overly loud gasp for air. Semi shook his head and flicked his hands free of black droplets at his sides. He wiped the water from his eyes, then, and blinked at his surroundings. The door was still closed, with the creature presumably still inside. Good. He still had time.

He’d need a lot of it, too, given how long it was taking him to catch his breath. Hell, he didn’t even know he was _capable_ of holding his breath for as long as he just had.

When he did finally collect himself, breathing about as calm as it was going to get, he sucked in another huge gasp of air, and dove back down.

With this dive, he didn’t waste time carefully searching the walls and higher floors. He kicked his way down as fast as he could, until his hands met the floor of what he hoped was the pool’s deepest point.

He was already pushing how long he could hold his breath by then, but he got right to searching, frantically spreading his hands across the pool’s floor in search of anything that could be a key.

He could really have used some scuba gear.

He shot back up to the surface for another breath. Then he dived. Resurfaced. Dived. He continued this pattern, over and over, his head feeling lighter with every dive.

Nothing.

The next time he came up, his gasp for air was accompanied by a frustrated yell that echoed off the walls and metal structures of the room.

“How the _hell_ do you expect me to do this?!”

As if whoever had written the words in red would actually answer him.

He scowled at every offending locked door before he dunked his head back beneath the darkness. He thought he’d scavenged every inch of the floor, the shallow and deeper areas combined, by this point.

He’d yet to wander into any tunnels yet, however.

He felt his way to one tunnel, maybe the same one from before, but he couldn’t exactly see the difference if it wasn’t. He pressed a hand to each of its walls and pulled himself inside, and, oh, god, this was a terrible idea.

With each time he pushed himself further into the tunnel, the idea seemed all the more terrible.

The more he wandered down the path, the more narrow the space became, until he reached a point where he was sure he’d get stuck if he tried to squeeze through any more. He stretched a hand out into the smaller space, but he couldn’t find anything outside of rough walls and cold water.

He tried very hard not to curse out loud, because he needed to keep as much air in him as he could. He pushed back against the walls, sliding himself out from the dark tunnel into the equally dark, but much more spacious pool.

He wondered how many more of these seemingly pointless holes were in this place, and how in the world he’d even begin to keep track of them. Before he could set for the boat again, the idea hit him. He struck a shallow scratch at the wall just above the tunnel’s entrance. Nothing big. He couldn’t exactly cut through concrete with his knife, after all. He could manage enough of a nick to feel it out, though.

He resurfaced for air, and thus began a new pattern of breathing and diving, this time with tunnel-searching added to the mix.

He found more, some like the first, and others with abrupt ends. Some were just spaces large enough to fit a hand through. No matter the size or shape, with each one, he scratched a mark above the opening for reference when he came up empty handed.

The one he was searching now was of explorable size, and didn’t grow smaller the further he traveled, for once. He’d thought that maybe, just maybe he was onto something, but he felt the rope tug at his ankle before he could even find the tunnel’s end or exit. The huff he made when he realized he could venture no further was entirely unintended. A small, but significant waste of oxygen.

No, no, this was fine. He’d crawl back out, and pull the boat directly above the tunnel’s entrance to give him a bit more travel room. Maybe that would be enough. He couldn’t go on without the rope, though. Not if he didn’t want to drown.

He’d only made it halfway back out the tunnel when he noticed another tug at his leg. It was at his left ankle, but he’d tied the rope to his right, and the rope hadn’t felt so slimy before, had it?

The fear and panic kicked in a moment too late, and Semi was already being forcibly dragged out from the hole. His eyes snapped open, and while the water didn’t burn like he thought it might, he still couldn’t see a thing. His hands instinctively gripped and clawed at the concrete walls, but it only resulted in chipped nails and cuts along his fingers as the tentacle whipped him out from the tunnel and slammed him into the wall adjacent to the entrance.

Something coiled around his arm, next, and he could feel where the trios of gaps in the creature’s skin were when they slid across his own flesh.

He sliced the knife across the tentacle with his free hand, setting lose his arm, then his leg. The creature made something between a hiss and a screech through the water, and Semi made back for the surface.

He managed exactly one, large mouthful of air before he was dragged back under.

Even if the water had been clear, his head was spinning so much, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to see the monstrosity either way. He tried to slice at where it had him, by both legs this time. His knife cut through gross, oozing monster flesh, but it also cut through his own in the process. He winced, and the creature swung a large tentacle at him, sending him spiraling through the water into another wall. His side collided with it, but he could feel an opening near his head with the way it tipped back past the wall, into open space.

He felt a brush of angry tentacles below his legs-- or maybe they were above them. He’d lost all sense of direction by now. Whatever direction it was, the only option seemed to be to head in the opposite.

He tipped back, and dove back into the tunnel.

He’d never kicked his legs so hard in his life. He could feel the presence of the creature chasing after him, but the touches only came in brushes against his legs, followed by screeches just as pained as when he’d sliced through its flesh. There was no time to think of why, or even to be grateful.

The rope around his ankle had to have been severed during all that. It was something he’d only realized when he found himself at the tunnel’s end, tumbling out an opening rather than into a wall. He swam upward, or downward, he still wasn’t sure, but his hands touched something, whether it was a floor or a ceiling. Frantically, and with bubbles escaping out his mouth against his will, he felt for an exit, for anything.

What he found, was not another opening, but something small, thin, and cold to the touch. Colder than the water surrounding him and threatening to force its way through his nose and down his throat. It must have been metal, with more thin pieces extending from it, tiny areas coated with rust.

His fingers closed around it, and he kicked off of the surface he’d found it on. It was the floor, he was sure now, because the item had to be prone to sinking, by the feel of it. He swam up, legs ready to fall off and his head screaming at him that there was no way he could still be holding his breath. That he wouldn’t make it.

But air assaulted his face, and abrupt as it was, it was like being reborn again. A much welcome feeling.

He shook his head, flinging black water from his hair and face, and trying to make sense of his surroundings.

He was still in the same room. Okay. He was surrounded by railings, though, in a small square of water between the metal bridges. The boat could be seen through the rails, right where he’d left it across the water.

Semi latched onto the bridge, and scrambled his way up onto the cool, metallic floor of it. He unclenched his hand, and there was black water pooling all around where an ornate, skeleton key rested in his palm.

No, that wasn’t right. There was some black water lingering on his skin, sure, but the other liquid was thicker than the water. It was dark, almost black, but in the flickering of the hanging bulbs above, he could see a faint, red shine to it.

And it was coming from him, from cuts where the key must have dug into him when he held it too desperately. He told himself he was imagining it, that it was no darker than blood would usually be, and that the new, foul smell had to be lingering from the creature, and not his own hand.

Still, it had him shaking, but he could blame that on the _fucking tentacle monster_ chasing him to the point of near-drowning, easily. His heart was still racing, too, and it only spiked when he heard the loud splash from beside him.

Tentacles came up from the water and slammed down, onto the bridge and around the railings, dragging up the body of the angry, and possibly still-hungry monster with sickening _schlopping_ sounds.

Semi clutched the key again, not paying any mind to the hiss of pain that came from his already cut-up hand in retort. He ran across the bridge, catching himself by the rail when he slid over puddles of black and his own deep red that dripped from his legs.

There were two doors, and he had no idea what was on either side of them. He only knew that one was covered in a taunting message, of which referred to the exact piece of rusty junk that he was now bleeding all over.

He didn’t want to play into this damned game, but life was unfair, he supposed. Or some bullshit like that.

He raced up the stairs, hopping over the bad steps, and it seemed to slow the monster down, at least a little.

When he got to the door, he fumbled with the key, turning it over in his hand. He looked to the barrier, and, really, it made no sense, why this heavy duty, metal contraption would use a _skeleton key,_ of all things, to open it.

And, yet, aside from some complications due to nervous hands, the key fit perfectly in the keyhole.

With a _click,_ the door popped open, just a crack. Semi hurriedly pushed through, careful of the gap between the catwalk and the door. He tugged the key from the hole and slammed the door shut. He locked it from the other side, for good measure, because _apparently_ that monster was able to get through a closed door the first time. He wasn’t taking any chances.

He remained there, a hand against the door for support as he tried to catch his breath. He wasn’t in total darkness, this time. The lights in this new place only flickered slightly, fading between dim and a little less dim. It was almost calming, compared to blinking bulbs or pitch black rooms.

He realized, then, that he’d be screwed if these lights went out. The matchbox was still attached to his arm, which was a plus, except that it was completely soaked now.

He let out a long, shuddering breath, and looked over his shoulder to his new surroundings: a hallway, with faded walls and less-faded patches to indicate where picture frames or mirrors may have once hung, with only one or two here and there still hanging. The floor looked like marble, but much of it was cracked and faded, much like the rest of the hall. Chandeliers with electric candles lit the way down, all of them draping with crystal beads and cobwebs. All down the walls were doors, wooden and ornate, and it was a completely different atmosphere from the place he’d just left.

He narrowed his eyes at it, and when he looked back to the door he’d come through, he saw that it was covered with the same faded wallpaper as the walls. Someone didn’t want it to stand out.

Semi stepped back from said door, and he looked down at his palm, at the key. The end of it had a design that reminded him of wings, the tips meeting in the center with just enough space beneath that point to fit a chain or a necklace through.

What he was more concerned with, was the blood coating the thing. His blood. His very unusually dark blood. His very unusually dark blood, which was coating his hand, but no longer leaking from the cut the key had made.

He couldn’t even see where the cut had been.

He looked down to his legs, and that looked no different. The scent that he’d noticed before lingered with him, though. It wasn’t the same kind of foul as an eel-shaped sock full of suspicious, rotting meats, but it was its own kind of sickening. Not something that should be coming from him, he was sure.

He shook the thought off, though, and tucked the key into the bandages with the matchbox. He re-tightened those for good measure, too.

He wiped his hands on his shirt, and started down the hall, regarding every door as a threat as he passed them. He could start opening them willy-nilly, assuming any were actually unlocked, but in all honesty, he wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of this hallway while he still had it. While he could still breathe. Before some other hell creature ripped out from the wallpaper to eat his eyes or something.

He stopped to peer at one of the cracked mirrors that still hung from the wall. Not because it was cracked, but because of the red smears all over the glass in the places it wasn’t.

_“Clickety-clack, the demon’s back,_

_This next hint will get him on track:_

_Key number two needs no eely snack,_

_Just a few broken hearts, with a crickety-crack!”_

Semi, with what little blood still lingered at his fingertips, brought one to the glass, and wrote, in his best handwriting:

_“Fuck you.”_


	2. Mr. Bones and the Big Blob

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crickety-crack.

Semi had discovered news both good and bad in his exploration of the hallway.

The good: It was the opposite of the last room, in that only _one_ of the several doors was actually locked.

The bad: The one room that _was_ locked, was likely the only way out, as every other room he’d checked thus far just seemed to be abandoned, smallish bedrooms, with no windows. The key he'd found in the black pool didn't fit this new lock, either. Nor could he get it off the hinges, like the pantry.

The room he was in, presently, had nothing but a small, old mattress on the floor, an empty nightstand, and an equally empty storage chest. The last two rooms he'd searched had been about the same.

It seemed strange, too, that there was so little to them, when the hallway itself looked like it might have been rather elegant, before time took its toll. None of it was as strange as the hidden door that led to a raging tentacle creature, but he was really trying to block that fiasco from his thoughts, for the time being.

He left the empty bedroom, and stared down the row of doors following the wall outside it. Three more. There were five on each side of the hall, with only one other at the far end. He'd yet to feel up the walls for more hidden doors, though, so who knew how many rooms there _really_ were.

He tried for the next one down. Another empty bedroom. The next was the same. When he left it, he stopped to glare at the red writing on the mirror.

What _"hearts"_ was that stupid poem even referring to? He kept listening for a heartbeat, thinking it possible he might find one pulsing beneath a floorboard somewhere. No such luck. Well, perhaps that wouldn't have been _luck,_ anyway.

He started his search of the other side of the hall with the door nearest the locked one. Another abandoned bedroom. Of course.

He wondered, briefly, if there was any use in even exploring these further. Every outcome thus far had been the same, and if it weren’t for a few small differences in the placement of furniture, he might have thought he was losing his mind, witnessing the same scene over and over with every door he opened.

This room, however, was an exception. The walls were different from the others, covered in marks that looked too much like a wild animal’s. Lines in groups of three to five cut down and across the walls, leaving tears in the wallpaper. If they had been from an animal, it was one hell of a strong one. And big, too. As if that could be of any surprise to him after his last encounter.

He stepped inside, hands trailing the wall before he even realized it, subconsciously searching for something he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t another hidden door. An answer, maybe? Not that any part of him really expected some wild claw marks to tell him their stories.

Still, his fingers lingered on a set of markings, even as he scanned the room. The marks covered the nightstand, just as well. The mattress and its sheet hadn’t fared much better.

He felt relief, at the very least, over the fact that there were no debris on the floor. He’d hoped that could only mean these were old, worn markings, and that whatever had caused them wouldn’t be waiting under the bed or within the wardrobe for him.

He supposed he’d have to search those, either way.

Semi swallowed, stepped forward, but found his fingers reluctant to move from the scratches. He looked to them, to where each finger aligned with the end of each downward cut in the wall. When his hands had been markless, mysteriously healed from the cut of the key, and had been mostly cleaned of their blood since then, he now saw them as someone else’s entirely, with too-sharp nails and coated with too much red. He reeled back, withdrawing his hand from the wall.

But the blood was gone. A small hallucination, or stray thought, purged just as quickly as it emerged.

His heart pounded, thrashed at his insides while he fought to catch the breaths that stuttered out of him.

Semi stepped away from the wall, unable to tear his gaze from the scratches. He backed into the wardrobe, stiffening at the collision, body refusing to move until the furniture stopped shaking behind him. He turned over his shoulder, then. He inhaled, took a handle by an unsteady hand, and pulled it open, just a crack. When nothing jostled or reached out for his throat, he opened it all the way.

Absolutely nothing.

“Of fucking course,” he said, and he made for the storage chest, next. He bent low as he made his way there, reassuring himself that there was nothing beneath the bed before he pulled the chest open.

The only thing on the inside was a small, plain, white piece of ceramic, in the shape of a heart.

A heart.

He furrowed his brows and brought it into his palm. It just fit in his hand, smooth and cold against his skin. He turned it over, hoping for another clue. Another dumb riddle written in red, perhaps.

Still, nothing.

The only thing that stood out, was a slot at the top, sealed off by glue or spackling paste, or something to clog what may have once been an opening to a coin bank. He gave it a shake, but he didn’t hear any jingling of coins, or any rattling of anything, for that matter.

But still, it was a heart, and it was the closest link to that red writing he’d found so far.

He straightened, tossed it lightly and caught it again in his palm. He did that a few times as he headed back into the hall, until he was face-to-face with the mirror again. He set the heart down by its tiny, round base, on the floor beneath the it.

“And how is this supposed to help me?” he asked.

And then he made for the next room, because as much as this place was eating away at his sanity, he’d yet to reach the point of actually expecting a mirror to respond to him.

He almost had to do a double take upon opening the door, because, for the first time in seven tries, he’d found a room that wasn’t some near-empty space with nothing but an abandoned bed.

What he’d stumbled upon this time seemed to be an office, with a large desk and bookshelves along either wall, mostly empty save for a few trinkets here and there. Any books or whatever might have been of use to such a room had been cleared out, leaving only small plaques, medals, and trophies that looked vaguely like they could have been related to some sort of science. There were a few plastic anatomical models of various organs, as well.

At the end of one particular bookcase, hung a model of the human skeleton by a metal stand.

Semi felt a chill when he met the eyeless stare of the model. It looked… far too detailed to be the sort of skeleton model you’d see in a classroom. Too many imperfections, too much discoloration in what should have been white plastic.

Too real.

But, it didn’t have a heart hanging between those bones, so he had no use in lingering on its presence. The mirror said nothing about a skeleton.

He wandered past it, fingers trailing the edge of the desk as he went along its side, searching the shelves for more clues. Of all the anatomical models lining the shelves, he didn’t see a single one of a heart. That sculpture he’d left in the hall was still his best bet, then.

He stopped at the backside of the desk, eyes falling to several drawers with faded gold handles. He tugged the top center one open. Empty.

He tried another. Some pens, pencils, a magnifying glass. Standard office supplies, he guessed. He half-expected to find more syringes, considering all the plastic body parts surrounding him, but it was more of a relief that he didn’t.

One drawer led him to the less than thrilling encounter with a family of cockroaches. He stumbled back, but returned to the desk shortly after, shaking the crawly feeling away. If he could handle oozing tentacle creatures, then he could sure as hell handle a couple of bugs.

With every drawer inspected, he stood back and frowned at the desk. Nothing of use. He’d even checked their undersides, desperate for another message, or a hidden compartment.

These stupid “riddles” were going to be the death of him. Quite possibly, literally. He didn’t even think they really qualified as riddles. They were just childish babblings and hints. The demonic sort of child, maybe, but childish nonetheless.

What was he supposed to do with that heart? Was _it_ the key? Was he supposed to find some sort of heart-shaped hole to jam the thing into?

He knelt down behind the desk and felt its inner sides, still hoping that there was _something_ hidden in the stupid piece of furniture.

He stopped short when his fingers came close to the floor. The carpet around the desk had seemed just fine, so he hadn’t really noticed anything _wet_ beneath it before. Except, wet seemed less and less of a fitting description, when his finger pressed against the spot with a _squish_.

The feeling was strange. Hard to place, but certainly not hard to the touch. Squishy, but still solid, and yet reminiscent of gelatin. But it wasn’t smooth, not completely. The texture was almost like…

Skin…?

With a gagging sound, he yanked his hand away and crawled back from the pile of fleshy goop, until he was up against the wall.

The pile wasn’t moving, which was something of a relief, but it was still there, _whatever_ it was.

At least it didn’t smell.

Touching this glob, while absolutely disgusting, didn’t have quite _as_ many disgusting features as a box full of eel and possibly-human meat.

Still, it was gross, and at least he could determine or guess the contents of the eel box. This? He had no idea what this was, or what it came from.

What if what he needed was inside this thing? Or underneath it? What if he had to touch it again?

He swallowed, then slowly climbed his way back to his feet, hands against the wall behind him. This… this could wait, right? He just needed to search the rest of the room, then the remaining ones, and he could come back to this grotesque _thing_ as a last resort, if needed.

Even if a small part of him had a feeling it’d be absolutely necessary to interact with it, either way.

_Just ignore it. Just ignore it._

Just like he was trying to ignore the way-too-detailed skeleton model.

Semi searched the shelves, next. He pushed aside trophies, stopping to read the plaques on some of them when he could actually make out the words. Some were just covered in strange symbols, like some of the writings he’d seen in the medical room.

Behind one cluster of awards, he found something that stood out. Another knick knack, another decoration, but not a trophy. At least, he didn’t think it was one.

Another heart, just like the one he’d found in the last room.

_Why were there two?_

He took it, searched the rest of the room, and offered the skeleton one last, uneasy glance before heading back into the hall.

He set the heart down beside the first, beneath the mirror. He still couldn’t see how this would help, but it was all he had, and he was going to run with it until a brighter idea came to being.

He soon found that the office, or study, or whatever one would call the room, was the only room in the hall that was not some sort of abandoned bedroom.

The next that he entered offered nothing of use.

The one after that, while void of clawed walls, held red stains and a drawer with a broken handle that had to be pried open with his knife to reveal a third ceramic heart resting inside.

The bloodstains should have bothered him. And they did, but he couldn’t place why it was _less_ unsettling to him than the scratches from the other room.

The room after that was about as useless as most of the others.

And now, he was standing before the mirror, with three tiny, ceramic hearts sitting below the thing, and not the slightest idea as to what he was supposed to do with them.

He breathed in deep, bracing himself over the thought of what he thought he had to do next.

_The blob._

Semi did not charge right back into the office. He stood before its door, watching the faded handle, as if it might move on its own, or grow teeth and bite his hand off, should he touch it. He needed a better plan of action. There was no way he was going to grab a pile of goopy, fleshy filth with his bare hands. He’d touched enough questionable things today, as it was.

He just needed to find something to… poke it with. Yeah. That would be fine.

He opened the door, but still, he didn’t venture inside. The room felt different from before. Emptier.

He immediately closed it and backed against the barrier, still in the hall, trying to catch his breath around a mutter of, “What the _fuck?”_

The skeleton was gone.

The stand was still there, but the damned model wasn’t hanging from it anymore. It wasn’t even on the floor. He’d have accepted it being on the floor. Time took its toll, the thing finally fell apart. Sure.

But it wasn’t, so _where the fuck did it go?_

The blob. Was the blob still in there? Was it alive? Did it do something with the skeleton? Was the _skeleton_ alive?

None of those options would have done much to surprise him.

He waited a bit. He listened for some sort of sound, a hint that the thing behind the desk might have been moving. He was given no such hint.

That was… a relief, right? But, then, if he’d heard any such hint, it’d have given him an excuse to run. Now, he was forced with actually having to face the damned thing, just to be sure.

Semi braced himself, and took his time in doing so. He had to enjoy the time while he could, after all. He’d searched all the rooms of this hall thus far without some tentacle or blob creature giving chase, and he wanted to keep it that way.

But eventually, it had to be faced, and when it was, he found… nada.

No more blob. Not even a sticky trace of goopy flesh left where it had been. Just… carpet, and nothing.

That was far from reassuring.

As if anything could come as reassuring at this point.

“This is fine,” me mumbled to himself, taking leave from the room once again. It must have been whoever was writing those messages. They were just moving things around to fuck with him now. That had to be it. What a sneaky bastard, doing it while he was busy searching other rooms. He must have known where Semi was at all times, too, because he probably really _did_ have cameras hiding all over this hellhole.

Those thoughts taunted him as he paced up and down the hall. The pacing went on for… too long, complete with paranoid glances to doors and talking to himself.

Eventually, he found himself sitting on the floor, cross-legged, in front of the mirror.

_“Just a few broken hearts, with a crickety-crack!”_

He glared at the three hearts laying in front of him. They seemed so useless. And they were light, probably hollow, and not a one of them gave any indication of containing something of use inside when he shook them.

But they all had those slits at the top, sealed off like they were hiding something.

He plucked each off the floor. Neither felt heavier than the other. He wasn’t going to learn anything useful by just observing them.

_Crickety-crack, then._

He took one, raised it high above his head, and threw it against the wall, just below the mirror. The heart shattered, small shards scattering by his legs and feet. Among them, tiny black dots fell upon the wall and floor. Some still clung to the shards of heart, but others crawled about, toward and away from Semi.

With a sharp curse, he scrambled back to his feet and stumbled away from his spot, brushing off tiny hoards of baby spiders as he did.

Spiders. Sure. _Why not?_ Something too small to hear crawling, and too clingy to hear when he shook the damned container around. What was going to be in the next one, then? More spiders? Ticks?

He stomped what ones came for him, but most seemed smart enough to run for freedom.

When he went for the next heart, he had to brush off a few lingering bugs. This time, when he threw it, he purposely tossed it far from the mirror, to the floor down the hall.

Nothing crawled out from its insides, this time. He caught a glimpse of red, however, and he approached the shattered clay with caution. The red clung to the broken pieces, dried in some places, but still slick in others.

Blood. Great. _Sure_. What _else_ would it be?

He left that where it was, fighting off a shiver as he plucked up the final heart. He half expected breaking it to summon some sort of spider monster, really. A maniacal laugh would fill the hall, and that would be the end of him.

He tucked that train of thought away to a less distracting place, and chucked the heart far down the hall again. No creepy crawlies or blood, this time. In fact, there was no… anything.

Semi frowned and went to inspect the shards more closely. He knelt down before them and plucked a few of the larger pieces from the floor. Maybe he’d find something clinging to them, or…

_Oh, great._

On the backside of one piece, were some scribbles. It was the same handwriting as the messages he’d been finding, but much smaller, and written with blank ink rather than some suspicious wet, red stuff.

The edge of the shard cut off part of the writing, so he searched through the other pieces, turning each over in search of the rest of the message.

When he found its mate and held them together, there was only a single word.

_“Your.”_

They were the only two pieces from this heart he could find with any writing, and that one word wasn’t all that helpful.

But there were two other piles of ceramic waiting for him.

The spiders had mostly cleared from the first, and he brushed away what few still lingered as he went over each piece of clay.

_“Under,”_ was the word waiting on the piece he found.

The bloody pile was next, and he bit his lip before he dared to touch any of those pieces. He wiped away the red from each shard he plucked up, trying to make out anything that could be written beneath it. He yanked back his hand with a sharp hiss when he sliced a finger on one, and tried not to panic over what getting someone else’s blood inside his own cut could do to him. He didn’t even know if this was someone’s, or some _thing’s_ blood.

He shook his hand before inspecting the tiny wound. He could see the contrast in the bright red from the shard, and the deep near-black of his own blood. He hadn’t been imagining the color before, then. There was a faint hint of the smell he’d noticed in the room with the pool, too.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it._

He was more careful with the other pieces, smearing away drippings of red, leaving pinkish spots on the once-white ceramic.

_“Wardro,”_ was the next word he found. Or, piece of a word, rather. He wondered if the rest of it had just been shattered into too small pieces.

_Wardro…. Wardro…. War...drobe…?_

Slowly, with the thought of _“Please, no,”_ on his mind, he turned to the room with the claw marks inside. It was the only one with a wardrobe, and that was the only word he could think to match the shard.

_“Under your wardrobe.”_

Who was _“your”_ supposed to refer to, though? It sure as hell wasn’t _Semi’s_ wardrobe.

He swallowed, and set the pieces with the writing aside, beneath the mirror, before reluctantly making way for the door of the claw room.

He tried not to look at the markings on the walls. He tried to focus on the wardrobe, alone. There was a small gap between it and the floor, where the tiny little legs held it up. Enough space to fit his hand beneath, he thought, but he’d already stuck his hand into enough suspicious spaces today.

He got down on the floor to check beneath it, first. Nothing about it seemed suspicious. Just kinda dusty, like everything else in this place. But, then, there was nothing that seemed useful, either.

He placed a hand beneath it, ready to feel up the bottom of the thing, but stopped when he noticed how much smoother his finger looked.

_“Where the fuck?”_ he whispered, pulling his hand back to his face in search of the cut that had just been there. It was the same as the skin the key had sliced earlier. Completely healed, with just smears of drying blood to show for it.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it._

He shook his head and slid his hand beneath the wardrobe, carefully patting the wooden underside. He froze when he touched something, rough and rusty, with something smoother strapped across it.

He grabbed at it, yanked it from the wood, and pulled it out from beneath the furniture.

It was a key, with a design much like the last, but with wings of a slightly different shape, and covered partially with a strip of tape that was torn from Semi ripping it away.

About fucking time.

Semi jumped to his feet, and left the room before he could contemplate any further why it was still so unsettling to him.

The sound of the click as he turned the key in the lock was beyond satisfying. That satisfaction dissipated the second he took the handle into his hands, however. He knew that whatever was waiting on the other side of this door, was not going to be the great outdoors or a rescue party. It was, more than likely, going to be another stupid hint, and he was probably going to yell at the top of his lungs the second he read it. He was planning on it, really. He’d love to do so much more than cuss out whoever was setting up these games.

Still, he went through the door, and into the next hall.

The next hall, it turned out, looked much like the last. Same wallpaper, same amount of doors. No mirrors, though. Nothing hung from these walls at all. There was a spot on the ceiling that looked like it might have hosted a second chandelier, at some point, but now there was only one left in the room, with only about a third of its electric candles in working condition.

He squinted through the dim light, already looking for the next hint. He didn’t find blood on the walls, nor the floors, or any of the doors. He supposed he’d have to go back to searching rooms again, or maybe he’d have to peel away at the wearing wallpaper in the hall to find the next clue.

Or maybe he could just fucking wake up from this sometime soon.

That probably wasn’t going to happen, so he was instead left with the decision of which door to open first.

He’d already been starting for the one on his left, figuring he’d go down the line just like the last time. He didn’t make it to the door, however. He stopped in his tracks, eyes settling on a room two doors down, where something was trying to draw him near.

The something sent chills through Semi the moment he laid his eyes upon it, with its translucent white presence, and its slow, beckoning movements.

The arm of a ghost hung from the door, lazily waving in a gesture for Semi to come closer. There was no sound to accompany it, no moans or whispers like he’d expect in a movie. But, then, this wasn’t a movie, and there was most definitely an actual, real ghost hand trying to get his attention.

He did not want to give the ghost hand his attention.

But he’d been giving a lot of things attention when he’d rather not, lately.

He backed away from the door he was in front of, mouth agape and trying to produce a _“Hello?”_ that he couldn’t seem to actually form.

When he did manage a sound, it was a yell, when something cold wrapped around his wrist and tugged him back toward the first door. A new ghostly hand held him tight, pulling him from the lure of the other. Another reached out from the door next, reaching further down his arm with added desperation.

Semi clutched his upper arm and pulled himself back, and a third hand reached out to help the others. Then a fourth, a fifth--

Too many to count.

It wasn’t just the door. The things were flooding the walls, hands stretching and reaching with too-long arms all the way down the hall, slowly and eerily waving and grasping at air in Semi’s direction.

“Let _go!”_ he cried out, frantically swinging his arm and pulling away. More hands gripped him, and gripped each other in a group effort to claim him. They didn’t _feel_ like anything solid, like anything that could pull him. They were cold, icy, like a winter wind that had centered into one arm-shaped spot. Or, several, in this case.

He soon felt that wind at his feet.

Cold fingers brushed his ankles, and Semi managed to yank his arm free of the door’s swarm.He stumbled away, kicking back from the ones rising from the floor, swaying as plants in a gentle breeze might, if that breeze were locked onto him, somehow. They grasped at nothing from all directions, from the walls and floor. The chandelier shook, crystals clinking against each other. Ghostly fingers dripped out from the ceiling, followed by arms that fell from the surface and swung down with the limp, dangling motion of a suspended ragdoll. They hung there, never revealing a body, reaching for him just like the rest.

Semi ran for the door at the end of the hall, maneuvering around translucent white hands that threatened to rise in his path. He tried to stay as close to the center of the floor as he could, fearing the limbs that stretched out from the walls for him.

He gripped and turned the handle with so much force he worried it might break on him. It jiggled, but refused to click open, and he could feel a stinging sensation building in his eyes.

_“Please!”_ he shrieked, as hands dripped and grew out from the ceiling above the door. “Help me, _please!_ Or give me another damned hint! _Something!”_

When no response came, and he felt the chill behind him grow, he spun around. Semi pressed his back flat against the door, hand just about glued to the handle. He shook, and he thought about reaching for the knife tucked into his bandages, but what could would a knife do against a horde of _ghosts?_

He opened his mouth to plead for mercy again, but something icy clamped over his lips. His eyes went wide, and tears welled up in his eyes. White hands covered his mouth, pulled his head closer to the door, and slid over his eyes. He could still see through them, cloudy and cold as they were.

His scream broke through the hands as they tipped his head back, forcing his eyes to the ceiling and what was still reaching for him there. They had his arms, his legs, all of him pressed to the door, while one gangly arm from the ceiling stretched further than the rest, fingers poised to pluck something.

He couldn’t close his eyes, even as those fingers lowered just inches above them.

The door flew open behind him, and something solid took him by the shoulder and dragged him back through it. The chill of the ghostly hands lingered, and it felt like ice had cut through him where he was ripped from their clutches.

Semi stumbled with the force and fell to his back on the ground. The door slammed shut in front of him while he pulled himself upright, and he threw both hands to cover his eyes. Everything around them felt so cold, and even though the ghost had never touched them, he could still feel its icy finger against them.

He made a choking sound, and wiped the tears from his face. Then, he remembered there was still blood on his hands, and he rubbed his eyes frantically with the back of his sleeve. A sleeve that was still damp with blackish water.

_“Fuck!”_ he yelled, voice cracking as more tears formed. Pride be damned, he deserved to cry right now. Whoever was setting up this game, whoever was watching him, they could laugh it off all they wanted.

This fucking sucked, and he was going to cry about it if he wanted to.

Semi bent over, curling in and wrapping his arms around himself. His body shook with one loud, violent sob that gradually broke down into smaller, quieter ones.

He was going to die, one way or another. He was going to die before he could find an escape, and he was going to be just another creepy _thing_ haunting this place, by the end of it. No one would find him, or bury him, here. He’d just linger. Reaching out of walls, for someone to save his spirit--

Was _that_ what those were?

He curled into something closer to a ball, freezing in the act only when he heard a sharp cracking sound in front of him.

Slowly, he lifted his gaze.

Right. Someone had opened the door. Someone had pulled him through.

Someone.

Some… thing…?

“You…” he began to say, and then he was backtracking along the carpet of the… what was this room, even? He didn’t take in the surroundings too much. It wasn’t another long hallway, but he was too distracted by what was standing in front of him.

It was still, at first, but then there was another _craaaack_ as it tilted its head, studying him with eyeless sockets.

Well, now he knew where that skeleton had gone to.

It raised a bony hand, its fingers unusually long, now that Semi really looked at them. It seemed ridiculously tall, too, but maybe it was just because he was on the floor, looking up at it, now.

Semi swallowed, and the skeleton took a step forward.

It didn’t make sense, the way the bones moved like something was holding them together, like it had actual, working muscles. But there was nothing there. Just… bones, somehow staying connected through their movements, with clicks and cracks as they brushed each other.

It set its skeletal hands on its leg-- er, its femur, and crouched down, closer to Semi’s level. Without a face to cover its skull, it looked like it was permanently grinning at him.

“You’re--”

The voice didn’t come from Semi, this time. It came from… somewhere in the skeleton, while its jaw moved with clacking sounds to accompany the word. Whatever else it was going to say, it didn’t get out, because Semi yelled and kicked at its hand when it came too close.

The hand went flying, bones scattering across the floor. The thing didn’t look away from him, though. Semi didn’t know if it was actually _looking_ to begin with, but its skull seemed very fixated on his position, whether it could see or not.

“You’re still pretty jumpy.”

_What._

It “watched” him for a moment, then turned away to retrieve its bones. Semi stayed frozen to the spot, observing the skeleton as it reclaimed its phalanges. The bones pulled together by some invisible force, reconnecting the pieces of hand to its wrist.

It flexed the fingers, then turned its perpetual grin back to Semi. “You should relax. All this crying is just gonna wear you down before the fun’s all over!”

_Fun._

Semi was at a loss for words. He only managed a frightened sniffle.

“You really had to go and start yelling though, huh? Man, that was fine downstairs, but if you keep that up in here, someone might actually hear ya…” The thing scratched the back of its skull, as if its bones could feel an itch. “I guess… I could just _leave_. Those hands usually stick to those rooms, so they ain’t gonna follow ya. I mean, as long as you don’t start screamin’ again when you see the next thing...”

_“Who_ might hear me?” Was the one question Semi actually managed, despite dozens of others clouding his head.

The skeleton tipped its head with another crack, so much that Semi thought the skull might actually roll right off. _“Someone,”_ it repeated. “And we can’t have that! Then we’d have to stop playing!” It dropped its hand from its head and turned away from Semi, crossing its arms. “I didn’t spend all this time coming up with these puzzles for nothing. You just woke up, and it’d be disappointing if you didn’t get to celebrate that! So, okay, you stay there for a moment, and I’ll leave. But, uh, maybe you should close your eyes, so you don’t see how I leave! Then we can continue, but you need to keep your voice down, or--”

_“You’re_ doing this?” Semi was standing, now. _“You’re_ putting me through this? And you think I’m having _fun?”_

It kept its head turned away, completely still. Semi had considered kicking it, just to be sure the thing wasn’t broken. And, well, he had other reasons for wanting to kick it, too.

Then, it did look at him. And it laughed.

“Aren’t you?” it asked.

Semi was dumbfounded. His mouth hung open, brows furrowed. He didn’t know if this was just more of this thing messing with him, or if it really thought Semi shared its sick idea of entertainment.

_“No!”_ he shouted, and the skeleton’s shoulders rose in something of a flinch. “You think that-- You can’t be-- No, no, you’ve been _torturing_ me since I woke up, and you’re going to play this all off like it’s some kind of _game?_ Like your puzzles are just innocent child’s play?”

“Semi, _Semi,”_ the thing said, and its voice saying Semi’s name was so chilling. Not just because of what it was, or what it’d been putting him through, or how it said his name like Semi was _overreacting_.

It sounded… familiar.

“You know you’re not in any _real_ danger, right? I mean, obviously, you’re having some trouble recalling a few things, but _come on_. I wouldn’t do anything that could actually _kill_ you.”

“And I’m supposed to just… _believe_ you?” Semi snapped. “Why are you doing this, then? Why am I here? What the _hell_ do you want with me?”

Another laugh. “I want to welcome you back! And this… it just seemed like the perfect way to do it! Ah, I guess it’d be more perfect if you remembered. You’re being kinda unappreciative, right now. Maybe, if you start with the next hint, you’d remember a few things, and--”

“I’m not playing anymore of your stupid game!” Semi pulled out the knife and pointed it to the thing’s skull.

The skeleton turned its head downward. It stared at the knife for a moment, or, it seemed to be staring, then it threw its head back with a laugh. “I’m all bones! What do you think that’s going to do?”

Semi knew full well the answer to that was _“not much,”_ but he didn’t know what else to do. The bones seemed to fall apart pretty easily, judging by what happened to its hand earlier. Maybe kicking it again wouldn’t be such a bad idea, after all.

He was trembling, and it was obvious when he couldn’t keep the knife steady in the air.

Skeletal fingers curled around Semi’s wrist, and the thing pulled him closer, so that Semi was staring into empty sockets.

_“Relax,_ Eita-kun, I’m just trying to help.”

He shivered again, and when he tried to pull from its grasp, it took him by the other wrist, too.

It parted its teeth, but before it could speak, a loud crackling, static sound filled the room.

The two of them froze, then, as the static settled into something more steady. A voice joined it, coming from somewhere high on the walls.

_“If whoever is using the power downstairs does not turn it out within the next three minutes, they will be severely punished for improper use of manor property. This has been your warning.”_

Semi was too afraid to take his eyes off the skeleton to find where the speaker was located. The voice, young and overly calm, despite its threat, ended with the static with a loud _click_.

And, like the skeleton’s, it was _familiar_.

It looked up, probably at the speaker that Semi was too afraid to search out, and offered an, _“Aw, shit.”_

Semi gave his arm another tug, but the skeleton didn’t release him. “Who was that?”

“Someone who’s gonna come ruin our fun if we keep this up.” The skeleton sounded so… disappointed. As a child who’d just had their toys taken away might.

“Stop saying _‘our’_ like I’m enjoying this!” This time, Semi managed to pull himself free. He backed away, and the skeleton turned to face him again. “Tell me where I am, and why I’m here. I want to know who that was, just now, and who you… _what_ you are.” He waved a hand at it. “Or is this some animatronic thing that you’re controlling from a camera room to mess with me?”

The skeleton laughed again. “Oh, no, I’m _very_ real! No cameras or robots, here!” It stepped past Semi, who kept his eyes trained on it all the while. And, as the thing moved about the room, Semi was finally able to properly take in his surroundings.

The room was round, with four doors, and two sets of stairs that spiraled through the center, leading to floors both above and below. They were wooden, with ornate designs throughout the railing. Nothing like the ones he’d seen in the room with the pool.

A chain hung low in the center of the stairs, from the floor above, suspending another dimly lit chandelier.

On the first step, was a bottle of red liquid, with messy, bloody fingerprints dotting the outside. Beside that step, was a pile of clothes, and something sickening and grotesque.

The skeleton stepped over to the fleshy glob piled on the floor, and reached down for it. It tapped the substance with its finger, and upon contact, the glob latched onto the bones. It stretched over the skeletal hand, bits of flesh pulling out from the pile and dragging up the arms, across its neck and chest, devouring the skeleton whole.

Semi’s breathing grew heavier, quicker, with every inch of the skeleton that the blob consumed. He thought about yelling, but found himself going silent when the skeleton turned to him once again.

The flesh was still working its way over the bones, gradually creating a picture that looked much more alive. Its face was only half-covered, with skin that looked like it was close to melting off, even as it tried to form something solid over the skeleton.

The thing brought its hands over where its eyes should have been, and when the blob on the floor was no more, and the skeleton had been completely coated, it lowered those hands, and grinned at Semi. It _really_ grinned at him, with a smile that stretched across its face and turned up at the corners. Mischievous. _Not good._

Its sockets were still empty, and when it tried to blink, the lids fell baggy over empty holes. Then, they bulged from beneath, and when they opened again, Semi was met with red irises.

“Now, then,” the skeleton-- or person, said, as a different red something formed at the back and top of its fleshy head. “You’ll be coming with me.”

It sounded so sure of itself, too. It made Semi equal parts terrified and furious. When the stranger picked up its clothes and made for the first step, Semi did not move.

“You said I’m not in real danger.” He tried to sound confident, like he could really stand his ground, but words came out with all the ease of prying your own nails off. Yelling at his tormentor was so much easier when he couldn’t see them. When he thought it could very well be human.

That was a stupid thought to have, now that he considered it.

“So,” he continued, “What if I _don’t_ go with you?”

The thing chortled. It had grown hair now, all in red that stood up in a hairstyle even Semi could call ridiculous, if he were less afraid.

“You wanna wander around this place without my hints?”

“Didn’t _you_ set it up so that I’d need the hints? What, have you got your own keys? Have you just been running on ahead to every room, writing up messages before I could find you?”

It turned around on the steps, and Semi wasn’t sure if he should even still be addressing it in his head as _“it”_ or not. They were… clearly alive. They looked like a person. They might have been a normal one, at some point.

Whatever the case, they touched splayed fingers to their chest in mock-offense. “Do you know how long it’s taken me to come up with these? Man, if you could just _see_ what I had planned for the next few rooms, then you’d appreciate my genius! It took you a while with the eel thing, though. Could you not find the light switch or something? Or did you forget how to swim?”

“I don’t _care_ how much time you’ve spent on this!” Rage was slowly overcoming the fear, making the words just a little easier to get out. “I care about finding out how I got here, and getting out. You’ve had your fun, alright? But if you’re serious about not planning on killing me, then let me _go!”_

They watched him with heavy lidded eyes, while Semi’s went wide at the end of his own words.

“You… You don’t plan on letting me out. You’re not going to kill me, because you want to keep me alive for more of your fucked up games.” Fear was inching its way back over anger’s trembling body, clawing at it with nails that could slice marks in an abandoned room’s wall. Semi backed away from the stairs. “Why do you want me to follow you? What’s up there? Who’s voice was that? What was that room I woke up in-- Whose rooms were in that hall-- What do you _want_ with--”

The skeleton-person’s loud laugh interrupted him, and they leaned over with their arms over their stomach, shaking in their amusement. “See, _that’s_ the sort of imagination that’s got you playing these games in the first place!” They brushed a finger at their eye, despite the fact that there weren’t any real tears to wipe away. “Keeping you alive for my own amusement? Fuck, I’m not _that_ sick, Semisemi!”

The world was somehow shaking, but frozen still, all at once.

Semi swallowed, but felt it crawl right back up his throat, until he was doubling over, hand slapping over his mouth while he tried to fight back bile. His head was pounding, but not nearly as loud or as rapid as his heart.

Footsteps. They were approaching him. They weren’t on the stairs, anymore.

Semi stepped back, but it only made the vertigo worse. He fell to his knees, tried to swallow back what threatened to come out, again.

“Hey, look--”

“Shut _up--!”_ Semi yelled, and with it, he bent low and vomited onto the old carpet.

It felt worse than the normal kind of throwing up from an upset stomach. It made his eyes water more than that, and his fucking heartbeat was unbearably loud. What the _hell_ was with his heart since he’d woken up?

Why did it feel so unnatural? Why could he _hear_ it? Why did his wounds close so quickly? Why was his blood different?

_What did you do to me? How do you know my name? Why does hearing you say my name make my head hurt?_

“...Who are you?” he managed between choking out the last of the vomit.

Silent, they rested a hand along Semi’s back. He froze, anticipated something horrible, until they started running their hand in slow, gentle circles.

“We can… talk about that, once we get upstairs, alright?” It sounded so quiet, now, and that didn’t make sense. They must have noticed Semi about to argue, because they picked up the next sentence too quickly. “And no more games! We’re… I’m done, okay? I’m… I’m sorry.”

Sorry.

Sure they were.

“You’re…” Semi shook, and spat what was left in his mouth to the floor. “...not going to tell me what’s upstairs either, are you?”

Their hand paused at his back, then it trailed down from his shoulder, along his arm until they were holding him by the wrist again. “Just stay close, and, whatever you see up there… try not to stare.”


	3. The Swan Down the Stairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he was better off asleep.

It came as no surprise that fate would leave him in this situation.

Semi was standing at the edge of the stairs, on the next floor. It seemed fitting that the door waiting at the end of them was locked. This area had undoubtedly been planned as another puzzle, though the skeleton hasn't gotten around to writing out the messages, yet.

So, he expected to be locked in. He also expected the skeleton to have a key to resolve that problem.

They did not.

The skeleton-person had tried every single key on their oversized, old fashioned keyring. When none of them granted an exit, they went to almost violently jiggling the handle as a last resort.

“Out of curiosity,” Semi asked when the stranger let go of the handle and offered the door one, loud, frustrated kick, “What sort of puzzle were you planning for this room, if you don’t even have a way to get out, yourself?”

They spun around, keys jingling from the ring in their hand. “Spares! The ones I was leaving for you were spares! Mine should’ve been right here, on this ring, with the rest--”

“Where’s the spare, then?”

They frowned, and flicked through each key, one by one. All of them had similar designs to the two Semi had found thus far, with wings at their ends, varying just slightly in their shapes.

They squinted as they thought it over. “The spare is… downstairs. It’s in one of those rooms. Maybe I lost the original somewhere down there, too…..”

And here Semi had thought they’d put so much planning into these stupid games.

Or, maybe this was just another one of them.

“You’re still fucking with me, aren’t you?”

He’d meant to sound threatening, but he’d just sounded shaken. Again.

“I’m not _trying_ to,” they whined. “We’ll just have to… go down there and get it. I know where the spare is, at least. Just promise not to start puking and crying on me again, okay?”

Semi’s hold on the stair rail tightened. “What’s waiting down there?”

“You ain’t gonna die, calm down.” They hooked the ring around their belt loop. They seemed to think better of their words, then, and met Semi’s gaze. They frowned at the fear and anger battling it out in his eyes. “I said no more games, alright? At least, until you can appreciate them.”

_“When_ would anyone appreciate any of what you’ve put me through?”

They only hummed, and started down the steps, past Semi.

But Semi still followed.

The stranger led him through a door across from that which led to the hall of ghost hands.

The room it guarded made the medial room look warm and cozy.

There was a bed, or a table, or some sort of contraption long enough for a person to lay on, in the center. It wasn’t like the table Semi had woken on. There was no glass, but instead, belts and straps in places clearly meant for restraining someone.

The tools along the shelves were not for standard medical use, he was sure. Too-big knives, saws, something that looked vaguely like hedge clippers, and many of which use Semi couldn’t determine their uses. Or, didn’t want to try and determine.

He stood frozen in the doorway, meanwhile, the stranger waltzed on inside like the room was nothing to balk at.

They skirted around the table, wooden and smeared with red stains, now that Semi got a better look at it. He tried very hard not to observe anything else with greater detail, especially the sharp and pointy things hanging from the walls.

And yet, it was like passing a car crash. He couldn’t look away.

There were bottles and vials of things lining shelves. Nothing new, for this place, but it was just a little more concerning when most of them were filled with something red. Red as the stains on the table and knives.

The stranger plucked one of those blood-stained things from the wall. A crowbar, it looked like, though it had clearly been used for something other than its original intent at some point in time.

When they turned from the wall, Semi stepped back from the hallway. They noticed his retreat, and lowered the crowbar with a laugh.

“It’s not for you. Don’t you think I’d go for the butcher’s knife if I wanted to do damage?” They pointed to one of said knives over their shoulder, then squatted down beneath the table. “Anyway, the key’s under a loose floorboard. It’s no fun _now,_ because I’m just _showing_ you.” They went on to mumbling something about it being a shame, about how Semi really should’ve experienced the puzzle himself. Apparently they had something _really exciting_ planned for the other rooms, and some _really clever_ hints.

Fuck them.

They pushed at the table with a grunt. The thing screeched across the floor until a floorboard beneath one of its legs was freed. The stranger wedged the crowbar between it and another board, and pried it upward. It took a bit of wiggling and jiggling to get it completely loose, but when they did, they were left with a small, plank-shaped opening in the floor.

Semi squinted at it from the doorway. “And I was supposed to find that?”

“With my _genius hints,_ yes.” They reached into the hole and pulled out an item that was most definitely _not_ a key. It was a mason jar, filled with something dark and thick.

Could have been jam.

Probably wasn’t jam.

They stood, kicked the board back into place, or almost in place, and didn’t bother to push the table back on top of it. “Okaaaay! Ready to go!” They kicked up one leg, ready to take one dramatic step back toward the doorway.

“No,” came Semi’s voice, sharp and quick.

They froze with their leg still in the air.

“You tell me what’s in that thing before you bring it anywhere near me.”

With a _“pfft”_ sound, they dropped their foot back to the floor. “The key’s what’s in it.”

“That doesn’t look like a key.”

“Well, you can’t see the key, with all the goop, but it’s in there.”

“And _what_ is the goop?”

“It’s _goop,_ Semisemi.”

It was amazing, how his head throbbed at the sound of his name, every single time. “Stop,” he said, fighting the urge to grip at his skull. “Just, stop with that name, okay? Unless you’re going to tell me why you know it, _stop it.”_

They frowned at him, like they were _hurt_ or something.

_The fucking audacity._

“It’s just like… syrup. Kinda.” They gave the jar a little shake, but the stuff inside barely moved. “Okay, I’m not entirely sure what it’s made out of, but it didn’t have a picture of a skull and crossbones on it, so I figured it’d be safe to stick your hand in.”

“You figured,” Semi repeated.

“Well I know it won’t _kill_ you!” The stranger huffed and twisted the lid off. “I’ll take it out, since you’re being such a baby.” They poured the dark syrupy stuff out onto an open palm. Something key-shaped eventually slipped out with it into their hand, along with a few other somethings that had even the stranger looking perplexed. “That’s weird,” they said, as they set the half-empty jar down on the bloody table. They poked at the round things that had come out with the key, smearing off goop for a better look at them. After some pause, they clarified, “Oh, it’s just eyeballs.”

_Just_ eyeballs. Right.

“Can we leave, now?” Semi pleaded, holding his arms around himself while the blood and goop on the table taunted him with their existence.

“Yeah, yeah.” The skeleton started back for the doorway, key and eyes all still resting in his palm.

When they brought them too close to Semi, he smacked the hand out of sheer instinct.

The two watched as the eyes rolled to the floor, and the key skidded off beneath a row of cabinets.

_“Why_ did you do that?”

_“Why_ were you going to keep the eyeballs?”

Semi offered his own hand a look of disgust, then wiped what little of the goop had gotten on it onto the doorframe.

“You coulda just said _‘drop the eyeballs.’”_

“I panicked.”

“You can stop that at any time,” the stranger grumbled. They moved to the cabinet, and laid flat on the floor to look beneath it, one eye closed and one peeked open far too wide to be humanly possible. “Hey, come help me move this thing.”

“Can’t you detach your arm and fish it out?” Semi mumbled, earning a rather interesting look from the skeleton-person. They looked… pleasantly surprised?

“You’re panicked,” they said, “but you sure are starting to act more… normal.”

“I’m afraid to ask what that means.”

“It’s the sass.”

Semi frowned.

They shrugged, and got back to their feet. “It just means you’re already warming up to me again!”

_“Again,”_ Semi said, frustrated and tired from the lack of explanation.

“Come help me move this, so I don’t gotta shed my skin.”

When Semi didn’t budge from his spot, the stranger rolled their eyes.

“Do you want to drag this out, S--”

Semi blurted a, _“Don’t,”_ as he took his first step into the room. He didn’t make it too far, though. He halted, curling his arms around himself again. The bloody things on the wall, the table, they all made him want to ball up by the stairs until this thing-- person-- whatever, came out with the key. Even if it meant some ghost hand might slither up from the floor after his throat.

He shivered at the thought, and braved his way to the cabinet. He held the end opposite the skeleton, and they pulled it away from the wall. It was unsteady, and it tilted with their attempts. Its doors fell open, and with them, something thin and wooden clacked against the floor.

With the cabinet pulled aside, the skeleton shuffled behind it to retrieve the key.

Meanwhile, Semi made the mistake of letting curiosity get the best of him.

He plucked up what had fallen onto the floor. The clipboard had a small stack of papers in its clamp, all of them faded and covered in various names, written in red ink. He didn’t recognize a single one of them, but the list made him uneasy, nonetheless. He started flipping through the pages. When he looked back up, the skeleton-person was standing there, watching him with something like unease. It was hard to tell for sure. They weren’t the easiest read.

“What is this?” The question felt heavy on his tongue. Some part of him felt like he knew the answer, but he couldn’t figure out _what._

The person looked at the list, at first, then they held up a pair of keys. “The uh, original was back there, too. We can go upstairs, now.”

“Whose names are these?”

“What’s it matter? They’re all…”

They trailed off, and Semi felt that sick, vomiting urge coming back. He held it in, this time, but his grip on the clipboard tightened.

“Dead,” Semi finished the sentence for them. “They’re dead, aren’t they? And this room… They died in this room…” The blood suddenly smelled so strong. “They were _killed_ in here.”

“Bein’ dead ain’t always so bad, y’know.” The skeleton hooked a finger in their mouth and tugged at the flesh, pulling it out far enough to reveal teeth, and gums that seemed to pull from the bone with the tugging. On the release, their flesh slapped back into place and reformed into something a little less frightening.

“They were tortured,” Semi pulled the clipboard to his chest. “This is a torture room. Did _you_ kill them, then?” he was raising his voice, and trembling through it. This was part of the game. They had the keys. They were living bones, they probably couldn’t die. They had the advantage. They could strap Semi down, cut him open, fill his insides with gross goop and eyeballs, or pull everything out of him and shove it into a jar, or--

Semi stepped back, let the clipboard clatter to the floor.

Cut him open.

_Bu-bump_.

Fill him with…?

_Bu-bump_.

A hand went to his chest, clawing at the fabric of the shirt that wasn’t his, right over his heart.

A yell echoed through the place, and it wasn’t either of theirs.

Semi turned his attention to the door. “The other rooms…”

Another yell, and then the skeleton was shouting something, but Semi didn’t pay them any mind. He ran out the door, stopping at the stairs only to try and make sense of where the agonized screams he was hearing could have come from.

The next cry came from the room to his left, and it was a strangled sort of yell that made everything in him shudder. He hurried for that door, freezing at the knob when the scream came again. Someone was being tortured in there. He needed to help them, right? If there was someone else in his situation, he needed to free them, and they could get out together. That was the right thing to do, right?

Or he could run away from the horrid noises.

This area was going to be another puzzle. This was something he was meant to walk in on.

This was a trap.

His ears were assaulted with the sound of something _ripping_ apart. There were more cries, gargled and sharp and desperate. There were wet, sickening sounds that filled Semi’s senses with the scent of blood, and images of flesh being torn open, even when the only sight before him was the door.

_Bu-bump_.

Semi clutched the handle, and yanked the door open.

The screams had died down. The room was, much like the other, full of sharp instruments. There were straps and chains along the walls, and stains between them that looked vaguely body-shaped.

But there was no one there.

_Bu-bump. Bu-bump_.

Trembling, he stepped back, until he felt another body behind him. Semi jerked around, eyes wide and prickling with the tell-tale signs of tears. The skeleton snatched his hand, and pulled him away from the door.

“Where _are_ they?!” Semi demanded, reclaiming his arm from their hold. “Who was screaming? What did you do with them?!”

“No one’s screaming, Semi--”

_“Stop!”_ His head throbbed, and he threw his hands up over his ears. “I _know_ what I heard! Someone was being cut open, someone was--”

“You’re hearing things.”

“That’s _bullshit!”_

“Semi,” they tried, far too gentle and far too reassuring, but the name on their tongue only made Semi bend over with another pained whine. “Did you… remember something?”

Semi swallowed and met their red-eyed gaze.

Had he?

“But that… No, it…” It sounded far too _real_. But, then, he recalled the claw marks from before, and how vivid the blood he thought he saw on his hands for that split moment had been. “Why wouldn’t I remember any of this?”

Then, he asked himself, why would he _want_ to?

Perhaps that had a lot to do with it.

As he stared at the floor, he could hear the stranger ascending back up the steps. He couldn’t will his own legs to move after them. The sound of footsteps came to a stop, and there was a faint sigh from up the stairs.

“D’ya want me to carry you, oh damsel in distress?”

Semi bit his lip. They asked the question with such an irritating, sing-song sort of tone. They still thought he was overreacting, the absolute asshole.

When he did catch up, the skeleton clicked the lock open and led them through.

And then, Semi wasn’t sure they were still in the same building.

The walls weren’t peeling as much, here. In fact, there were very few damaged spots, at all. The walls were lined with mirrors and paintings, and the floor looked like it had been cleaned fairly recently.

But, then, it was also very dark. Electric lights hung from the ceiling just as downstairs, but they remained unlit, with the occasional wax candle placed upon a stool or shelf here and there to light the way, instead.

The doors all held plaques with names or numbers. The one the skeleton was closing behind them looked like it had been scratched away.

When Semi tried to ask where they were, for the umpteenth time, he was shushed by the skeleton.

“Try not to make too much noise,” they warned. “They’ll make a big deal if they see you without warning.”

_“‘They’_ who?” Semi whispered, but he was shushed again.

They took his wrist and made a right, stopping at an entryway table between two doors to gather a few things. Laid out on it, was a plate of unused candles and a box of matches. One candle was already in a holder, lit off to the side, and beside the plate, was a small note card, folded and propped up with a message written in much neater handwriting than the skeleton’s.

_“Candles supplied in the halls should be kept in the halls. When you are done, please blow them out and return them to a plate. You should have your own supplies in your rooms.”_

There was a signature next to that, but Semi couldn’t quite make out the name with the fancy script.

There was another note beside that one, with equally pretty, but very different handwriting.

_“Whether from your own stash or the halls, please use candles for sight-purposes only. We do not care whose birthday it is, Bokuto-san.”_

That one didn’t have a signature. And, really, it just left Semi more confused.

“Do people _live_ here…?”

_“Ssshhh shh sh!”_ The skeleton spun around to Semi, a long finger pressed to his lips while he shushed him more loudly than Semi had actually been whispering. They turned back to the table, then, and lit one of the candles from the plate.

“Yes, a lot of us live here. That’s why we need to be extra quiet, so they don’t see you.”

“And do _what_ to me?” Surely, they couldn’t have been much more sane than this person. They all had to be aware of what was downstairs. They couldn’t _not_ be.

They waved for him to follow, candle in hand to guide their way.

There were windows, further down the way, with ornate carvings in their frames. It was dark out, void of stars, even, so he couldn’t make out much of what was outside.

But there was a window, right there. A portal to the outside world. He didn’t know how high up they were, if there were more floors below the ones he’d already been on, or if those were considered the basement, or what. In any case, the urge to find the nearest heavy object and throw it at the glass was all too tempting. Semi stopped in his tracks to gaze out the thing, eyes lingering on the moon.

The moon looked… strange. Like a hazy, purple-ish veil had been cast over it.

_“Hey,”_ the skeleton hissed out a whisper. _“Don’t fall behind.”_

There could have been a pit of spikes waiting at the drop of the window, and he wouldn’t have been surprised. He thought he might regret not trying, anyway, but he followed the skeleton, instead.

He was guided around a few corners, until the skeleton led him to a more open space. They stopped and put an arm out in Semi’s path. He’d been shushed enough times to know better than to ask, so he just offered them a glare, instead.

Then, they put up a hand, a gesture for Semi to stay put, and advanced into the open area. Semi kept his feet planted, but leaned forward, trying for a better look.

Steps, three sets of them, by the look of it. Two led downstairs, while the third sat across and between them, leading to a higher level.

How many goddamn floors did this place have?

There was a laugh, then. A voice he didn’t recognize, not even vaguely. The skeleton cursed and moved back into the hall, urging Semi to backtrack with them. They shooed him beneath an old settee, begged him not to make a sound, and then they were gone.

How reassuring.

There was a very dated skirt around the bottom of the furniture, and it served as a good enough hiding place. It was just a shame that Semi had no idea who or what he was hiding from, this time.

_This time_.

What a day it’d been.

The laugh came again, followed by someone else’s. They grew louder, closer, and then he heard the skeleton’s voice mix in with them.

“Hey, hey! Was that _you_ messing with the lights downstairs?”

“He’s pretty pissed about it, y’know.”

“I hope you’ve got a good excuse, this time!”

“Pfft. He’ll understand, once I plead my case!”

“Yeah? ‘Cause you look a little nervous, dude.”

They sounded so… normal. It was so, so hard for Semi to resist peeking out from beneath the skirt. Would there be more people with goopy, melty flesh, out there? More skeletons? Ghosts? They couldn’t possibly be anyone normal, like himself, even if they sounded terribly so.

“Even if he lets ya off, the other two might not.”

“I’ve got this,” the skeleton assured them, all easy going.

Something sounded vaguely like a hand clapping a back or shoulder, and a, “Whatever you say, Tendou,” before the footsteps of the other two faded down the hall.

Tendou…. Tendou…… Ten--

_Bu-bump_.

Semi sucked in a sharp breath, then went still, hoping it had gone unheard. There was silence for a bit, after the footsteps could no longer be heard.

Tendou Satori.

The name came to mind, but Semi didn’t know how he knew the rest, when the voice had only mentioned half of it. Maybe it wasn’t the same person. Maybe he was thinking of someone else. He just didn’t know who.

The skeleton lifted part of the skirt with their toe. Semi slipped out from beneath the furniture, unable to help but look down the hall where the voices had disappeared to. There were no more traces of them, however.

“Alright, alright.” They were back to whispering. “Let’s hurry, while the coast is clear.”

Semi stayed put while they made for the area with the stairs.

“Tendou,” he said, but he was still staring down the hall.

They froze, and Semi had expected to be shushed again. Instead, they just turned around, slowly, to watch him with wide eyes.

Semi met those wide eyes with uncertainty. “Is that… you?”

They studied him, and then their shoulders dropped. Disappointment?

“Yeah.”

It-- No, _they--_ No, god, Semi had a name to put with the skeleton, now, and it made him feel something… sickeningly nostalgic, even if he couldn’t quite place why. They were just as much a stranger as before, and yet, _“he”_ suddenly seemed more fitting, like they weren’t some kind of vague, mystery entity any longer.

Except, they still were, he reminded himself.

Yet, even so, _he_ turned back for the steps, waving for Semi to follow.

The two of them stood in the midst of a foyer, with double staircases leading up to their level. Below them, was a tiled floor, covered in intricate designs. It had been swept recently, or at least more recently than anything downstairs had been. Several candles were placed in odd spots down there, along walls and in niches. Their flickering flames reflected in the tile.

He followed Tendou past the first of the double stairs, but his eyes lingered on the elegant makeup of the floor below. All of the tiny details in the tiles created one vast, abstract image of a swan in the center of the floor. He’d called it a goose, the first time he’d seen it, and Kawanishi had refused to let him live it down for the rest of the night--

Wait, what?

Where had _that_ train of thought come from?

Tendou had no intentions of taking them downstairs, apparently. He was heading for the door across their level, but Semi’s legs were taking him elsewhere. He couldn’t pull his eyes from the swan, and it hadn’t even registered that he’d been walking down the steps at all until he was standing in the center of the floor’s design. The skeleton was whisper-shouting something from behind, trying to urge him back without raising his voice.

Semi didn’t even hear him.

What he heard, instead, were the voices of people that weren’t really there. Not anymore.

_“And this is your friend, Kawanishi-san?”_ came her voice, soft and welcoming. Semi could see her, with her hair all done up in curls and her dress rolling against the floor like rose petals turned over.

_“Shirabu-san, this is Semi. He’s been my roommate since Yamagata moved out.”_ Kawanishi cleaned up nicely, Semi had thought. He still thought so, as the image of his friend stood beside him, bowing slightly before the woman.

She had laughed. _“You don’t have to be so formal just because this is a ball.”_ She had turned that gentle smile onto Semi, then. _“It’s very nice to meet you.”_

Someone had stood beside her. Shorter, with choppy bangs and a face that Semi couldn’t quite make out. It was there, he knew it. The person certainly had a face. It didn’t look blurry, exactly, and yet, it was unclear.

She had turned to that person. Gave him a nudge. _“Don’t be so rude, welcome our guests.”_

Semi could feel eyes on him, despite the fact that he couldn’t make out the person’s face.

Everything around them was music and talk, and food and drink and dancing. All of it so vivid, except for _this person_.

A hand at his shoulder pulled him from the scene. The festivities disappeared to an empty, dim foyer as Tendou spun Semi around toward himself.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” he hissed. “D’you want someone to see you? Listen, we’re almost there, so no wandering around--”

“There was a party.” When Tendou only offered a dumbfounded look, Semi continued. “Here. I was here, with a friend. I… What _happened?”_

“You remember that?” Tendou seemed to be studying him, then he took Semi’s wrists. “That’s… That’s good! I’m glad. But, really, we should get back up--”

_“Tell me_ what happened, here.”

“I _can’t!”_

_“Why?!”_

“Because you’ll…” Tendou let go of him and made a vague  twirling motion with his hand. “I just _can’t,_ okay? He said I can’t. He thought it’d be better if you remembered naturally, if you woke up, so--”

_“‘He’_ who?” Semi snapped, too loudly.

Guilt. Fear. _‘Oops, I fucked up,’_ was the sort of expression he read in Tendou’s face.

“You’ll see,” Tendou settled on, uneasy with his own response. “Soon. If you just follow me, I promise.”

The next tug he gave Semi’s hands was almost hesitant, but Semi still didn’t want trust it. Didn’t want to trust him. Still, he allowed himself to be led back up the steps, but not without glancing past his shoulder to the image of the swan.

_Bu-bump. Bu-bump. Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump--_

He swallowed, and when his lips parted, it was with a desperate gasp for air. With every workout and volleyball game he’d done since high school, his heart had never beat quite this erratically before. Well, not that he could _recall,_ in any case. He even thought, right now, that it was worse than when that tentacle creature or the ghostly hands had chased him.

All this from seeing one, empty room?

Tendou squeezed his hand as they started back down the hall. Semi wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be reassuring, or possessive, or what. It made him uncomfortable. And that said a lot, with how his day had being going.

When they finally stopped, it was before a door that stood out slightly from the others, if only because of the word “study” on the plaque was written in gold.

Tendou reached to knock, but withdrew his hand at the last second. He stared down the door, then turned to Semi.

“Remember what I said about not staring? If you saw anything weird?”

Weird. Like the living skeleton wearing a pile of possessed flesh in front of him.

Semi merely nodded.

“That. Don’t forget that. And, uh, if you remember anything else, while we’re in there… Try to keep calm?”

That, alone, made Semi very much want to do something _not_ calm. But, rather than the snide remark or outburst he’d have favored, Semi glared at him.

Tendou made a frustrated sound with the back of his throat. Or… it sounded like the back of his throat. He was making sounds when he was just bones, though, so, maybe that wasn’t the case.

Whatever.

“Okay, fine. That’s a bit much, I got it, I got it. Just... The staring. Try not to stare.” He turned to knock, but, again, stopped himself to spin right back around. “And, not counting us, there are three people in the room. Three! You got that?”

“I can’t really say I’ve ‘got’ anything since I woke up.”

“There are three people in there, at most. Maybe less, I’m not really sure, but there’re never more than three. Not counting us, who they’ll probably let in, for now.”

_“Okay?”_

“Three people, Semisemi.”

Semi winced.

“You didn’t forget how to count, too, did ya?”

_“Why_ is this important?”

“Three,” Tendou repeated, holding up three fingers. “Maybe less, but no more! Okay, I’m not saying it again. Just. Remember that.”

To say _“You’re acting strange,”_ would have been almost laughable at this point, so Semi didn’t.

This time, when Tendou turned for the door, he knocked his knuckles against it for real. No sound came from the other side, and the skeleton sighed. He rocked from his heels and onto his toes, making himself taller, as if he wasn’t tall enough already, or as if it was really necessary to do so in the first place.

“I’m sorry about the lights!” he called, without sounding sorry at all, “But, there’s something I need to show our gold feather!”

A click, and then the door cracked open on its own. Tendou put a finger to his lips as he turned to Semi.

_“Wait here._ And don’t go running off or doing something stupid just ‘cause my back’s turned.”

Tempting.

Tendou pushed the door open a little further, enough to poke his head inside, and, now, with the door open, Semi could hear the voices from within.

“What a _surprise!”_ came one, with a mocking sort of tone. Semi could barely make them out past Tendou’s hair, but the voice had certainly come from the man with sweeping chocolate locks and… horns? No, maybe not horns, but there was _something_ growing out of his head from one side. “The troublemaking little _monster_ was behind it all along!”

“We have more than one monster among us. It could have been at least two other people.”

That second voice was less loud, almost flat. Hard to read. Semi couldn’t see them, or anyone but the first voice’s owner, for that matter.

“Oh, please,” the one with the thing on his head scoffed, “Like he doesn’t spend the most time down there, spying on Sleeping Beauty.”

“Tendou-san,” came the third voice, and Semi went stiff, “We shouldn’t have to remind you why we use candles, here. If it isn’t the restrooms or kitchen, there’s no reason you should be messing around with the electricity. My magic can only keep so much of this place running at a time.”

The voice from the speakers.

“Right, right,” Tendou said, casually, like the scoldings meant nothing to him. “And I’m _so_ sorry! But, before you decide to punish me for it, I really think you should see what I found, down there.”

“You didn’t even turn the lights out when you heard my announcement, did you?” The third voice groaned something tired. “I can still feel the drain. _What_ could you have possibly found to change my--”

With a long creak, Tendou pushed the door open all the way, giving the three a full view of Semi behind him, and vice versa.

The study was far larger and far more full of books and candles than the tiny little closet of a thing he’d found Tendou in downstairs. One man sat in an armchair beside a crackling fireplace, his legs crossed and the side of his head of short, black curls propped by his hand. He looked relatively normal, but his cold, blue-gray eyes found their way to Semi, and made him think twice.

But, really, they all felt cold, despite the fire warming the room. The one with the things growing out his head sat upon the edge of a shorter bookcase, and he leaned forward with a whistle at the sight of Semi. The things, though Semi was unsure in the dim light, looked very much like the same color and texture as the bones that Tendou had been baring before he put on his skin. They grew up from the left side of his head at different heights, poking out from brown locks, with stains of red fading up their bases. Smaller bumps circled them, leaving tiny deformities down to his temple.

And the owner of the third voice, sitting at a desk beyond the two, stared at the new face with a single, wide eye. The other eye, his right, was completely covered by bandages, all the way up beneath his ridiculously angled, ash blonde bangs. The pen he was holding clattered to the desk.

While the other two stared in silence, the third opened his mouth, working around a word he couldn’t quite get out.

Semi was left just as speechless, but he was unsure if he would be able to hear any of them past the deafening sound of heartbeat.

A flood of _something_ passed over the third’s face, as he shut his lips tight and kept his one eye trained on Semi. The emotions were hard to make out. Semi was having a bit of trouble determining his own, if he was being honest.

When the one-eyed one finally spoke, it was a soft, almost hurt contrast to the way he’d spoken with Tendou.

“You’re awake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys aren't expecting EVERY chapter to be spooky and intense. There will definitely be more of those, but there will be about just as many non-spooky things, too!! Hooray for... balance, or whatever.


	4. The Great Big House Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [grim grinning ghosts playing in the distance]

_“You’re awake.”_

The words were gentle, hesitant, but they cut through Semi and lit the wound ablaze. It was a sharp, sudden sort of pain that soon stilled as the words took their time to process, then built right back up with the slow, agonizing burn of a flame.

He knew this voice. He could hear it in whispers, in soothing reassurances, and in short, sharp words that seared much like what he was feeling right now. He could hear it in the midst of a party’s crowd, accompanied by a face that he could finally place, though the second half of it hadn’t been covered with bandages back then.

 _“Who are you?”_ he wanted to ask, but Semi could only gape as blurry images and words that he couldn’t quite make out swarmed his head.

Tendou stepped aside and turned his hands outward, presenting Semi like he was some sort of long-awaited gift. “See, you guys make fun of me for hanging around in the basement all you want, but none of _you_ would’ve heard him trying to break outta that case! So, you’re welcome! And, you can take back whatever punishment you had in mind for me wasting electricity. I think your demon heart is a fair trade.”

The one with the things growing out of his head scoffed. “And when did _you_ gain that sort of authority?”

“Just now. I decided.” Tendou grinned at them, and tugged Semi into the room. Part of him wanted to fight against it, but most of him was just numb.

“Demon heart,” he managed, and he could just see the papers of the medical room scattered before him, taunting him with their nonsensical findings. “You’re talking about….”

The man with the head-things clapped his hands together. “Oh, Shira-chan was right! He doesn’t remember a thing, does he?” Amused. He sounded so sickeningly amused. He tilted his head toward the one-eyed one at the desk, smiling away and dropping his eyelids in an expectant sort of way.

The one at the desk continued to watch Semi, but they seemed to have grounded their expression into something more… neutral. Less chaotic and unsure. The study fell quiet, all but for the sound of the crackling fire. He placed his hands at the desk, gently, and rose to his feet. “Do you know who you are?” That hesitance was gone, now. He sounded just as he did when addressing Tendou, and over the speakers. Cold.

Semi’s words had to claw over a lump in his throat, but they found their way out past chapped lips, eventually. “I do.”

“Do you know _where_ you are?”

Semi wasn’t sure if he’d shaken his head or not. He wasn’t sure if he could even move.

The other moved around to the table’s side, fingers trailing its edges. Fine, clean edges. This space really felt like another building from downstairs. Another world, even. “What _do_ you remember?”

“Who are you?” Semi asked, instead.

“Answer my question.”

“You all know more than I do.” A shaky exhale. “My questions are more important.”

The one with the things on his head curled into himself with a laugh that shook his shoulders. Tendou made a vague, breathy sort of laughing sound, himself.

The one by the desk frowned at him. “That’s not how this is going to work,” he said. “You’re unstable, Semi Eita, and now that you’ve decided to wake up from your beauty nap and join us, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that you don’t act on that instability again.” He was in front of the desk, now, approaching Semi. He was shorter than him, but he carried himself with a straightened back and long, authoritative steps. “And doing that, I’m sorry to say, does not include letting you have things _your_ way.”

He was just steps away from Semi when he stopped, and with the orange glow of the fireplace lighting him from the side, Semi could recall very clearly what the rest of him had looked like beneath those bandages. He could see a boy standing beside his sister in the midst of that formal gathering, all dressed up, but clearly wishing to be anywhere but there. Semi had thought, back then, how funny it was, that he fit the rich kid description so well, with his flawless, smooth skin. Even with the stupid angle of his bangs, he’d looked _perfect._

 _“What a brat,”_ Semi had thought, and he thought the same now, as his one eye locked with Semi’s gaze.

“So,” he went on, “I’m going to ask one more time. What do you remember, Semi-san?”

Semi wanted to do a lot of things to that former pretty-boy face in that moment. He couldn’t decide on which. Turn away from it. Punch it. There was a third idea, but he locked that more confusing urge somewhere _very far_ away for the time being.

He did neither of those three things to his face. Instead, he chewed his lip, and said, “I remember… a party. Downstairs.” When the other lowered his head a tad, still watching, anticipating more details, Semi added, “I remember you, but you looked… different.”

“...Is that all?”

Semi broke the eye contact and looked to the floor. “I… I don’t know why I was there. I remember who I was with, and that you were with someone… Taichi’s friend?” He closed his eyes, trying to recreate the scene from the foyer. There were voices, the idle chatter of aristocrats and scholars that he had no business being around. “Shirabu,” he said, and glanced up. The eye on him was intense. “Her name was Shirabu Mitsuko. They were classmates. You… You’re her brother, right?”

Something flashed across the half of his face that Semi could see. It read like hurt, but surely he was mistaken.

“Nothing else…?”

 _“No,”_ Semi snapped, but once he realized he had, he drew in a quick, sharp breath. He didn’t know what any of these people, or _not_ -people, were capable of doing to him. “I… I remember everything before that. I remember my life being _normal_. I sure as hell don’t remember anything about demons, or living skeletons, and I sure as hell think I _would.”_

“The magic that put you out lasted much longer than anticipated. I had a feeling there might be side effects, like this.”

“Magic.”

Shirabu quirked a brow. “You’ll question magic, but not demons or living skeletons?”

“I’m definitely questioning all of that.”

“And your answers will have to wait until they come to you naturally.” Shirabu turned on his heel. “If you remember the ball, then you’ll probably remember more, later.”

“Or you could tell me _now.”_

“I already told you, that’s not how this is going to work.” Shirabu glanced over his shoulder at him as he made his way back to his seat. “If I tell you, then there’s a chance that every memory will come flooding back to you at once. There’s no telling how that heart of yours will respond if that happens.”

Semi brought a hand over said heart.

“You’ll have to remember _that_ on your own, too.”

“Shirabu-san.” The dark-haired one by the fire uncrossed his legs. “Perhaps, telling him would be better. At the very least, we could do so in a controlled environment, where we know there’s a possibility of him lashing out.” He was either oblivious or unconcerned with Semi’s attention on him. “If you let him recall on his own, we’ll have less a chance of containing an outburst.”

Shirabu huffed. “And then we’re forced to put him out again, and the waiting game starts over. I’m not going through this, again.”

“You people make it sound like I’m going to _kill_ someone.” Semi tried to ignore the sudden coppery taste the thought put on his tongue. “You’re concerned with me, like you psychopaths don’t have rooms full of torture devices and dead things crawling around downstairs. You’re worried about _me_ doing something crazy?” He hadn’t realized he was practically snarling at them. “You don’t want me to do something stupid, here? Then don’t tell me anything. Just show me the exit, and we’ll _all_ be happy.”

The one sitting on the bookcase chuckled. “Oh, he thinks there’s an _exit_. That’s precious.”

Semi furrowed his brow at him. When he gave him another look over, the growths on his head definitely looked like deformed _bones_. The way that the ones in the center of the cluster peaked higher than the rest almost made it appear crown-like, even.

Above that crown, something flickered. It was brief, and gone just as quickly as it appeared, but it was definitely human-shaped, hanging in the air over the crowned one.

It made Semi flinch, and he was fully prepared to address it, until Tendou cleared his throat beside him. When Semi gave him his attention, he was holding up a hand, three fingers raised, and mouthing the number again.

“We have an exit,” Shirabu said, now seated, and idly twirling a pen in his hand. “You may go outside anytime you like. You won’t get far, though. Hopefully you’ll have the sense to quit when you find the corpses that’ve tried.”

“See, Semisemi…” Tendou ignored the look Semi shot him at the name. “...If anyone could leave, no one would _be_ here. We’re all just as much prisoners as you, so…” He threw an arm around Semi’s shoulder and leaned in, narrowed eyes whispering a threat before he even re-parted his lips. “...You might as well get used to our big, happy family, as soon as you can. You’ve got a loooong ride ahead of ya.”

Semi shoved Tendou off of him. “You want me to just _accept_ this horror-movie place? You want me to put up with more of your fucked-up games, too?”

“Games?” Shirabu asked, voice something like a warning as he eyed the skeleton, who was very purposely _not_ returning the eye contact. With a sigh, Shirabu set down the pen. “Akaashi-san,” he said, and the one by the fireplace tilted his head in acknowledgement, “Please show Semi-san around the manor. You can show him the grounds, if he’s so set on going outside. As for his room, the same we’ve discussed before is fine.”

Tendou reached to wind around Semi’s shoulder again, but Semi very quickly put more space between them. With a pout, he groaned, “I can show him around just fine!”

“I’d rather you stayed behind so I could have a word with you, _Tendou-san.”_ Shirabu shot him a glare, and the skeleton offered a sound of disappointment.

The curly-haired one, Akaashi, didn’t look too pleased, either. “Why me?”

“Because Tendou-san has likely caused enough trouble as it is.”

“Sorry, allow me to rephrase. Why don’t _you?”_ At Shirabu’s glower, Akaashi sighed and stood from the armchair. He stepped past Semi without casting him so much as a glance. “Come on, then. You’ll only exhaust yourself with more arguing if you stand around in here, any longer.”

“There’s no fucking way--”

“You want questions answered, yes?” Akaashi pushed the creaky door open. “I won’t provide anything regarding events before you went to sleep, but you’ll still get more out of this than by shouting at Shirabu-san all night.”

Semi went over his options, only to realize that he didn’t have very many to begin with. He was outnumbered, and by people who were very clearly not-human, at that. Or, most of them weren’t. He couldn’t be too sure about Akaashi, yet.

He wished he knew what sort of outburst they thought he was capable of, so that he could use it to his advantage.

He started after Akaashi, but paused in the doorway to look back at the others, at Shirabu in particular. He swallowed, and the image of his old friend among the party crowd flashed past his eyes again. “He… Taichi was here, with me. Is he…? Can you at least tell me if…”

Shirabu inhaled, and seemed to be contemplating whether or not to answer or shoo Semi away. His eye fell to the table. “Taichi…” He frowned, and corrected himself, “Kawanishi-san is just fine.”

Semi didn’t know quite what “just fine” meant in this place, but it was at least more of a response than he’d expected. He nodded, slow, and followed Akaashi out the door.

“Would you rather change into some clean clothes, first?” Akaashi had already struck a match by the time Semi closed the door behind them. “Or are you content with the blood and dust?”

“I don’t plan on getting comfortable here.”

“Of course.” Akaashi started down the hall, the same way Semi had come with Tendou. “In any case, it would take too long to show you every nook and cranny of this place. For today, I’ll show you the main floor, and the grounds, then I’ll show you to your room, where you can be as uncomfortable as you like.” He took a candle from a plate by the stairs and lit that before descending. “If you have questions regarding the manor, I may be inclined to answer, as long as they don’t conflict with the rules Shirabu has already established.”

Semi waited at the top of the stairs. Akaashi was already about a third of the way down, but Semi found himself staring at that damned swan design on the floor, again.

_“You’ve got all the money in the world, and you spend it on tiling a picture of a goose in your house.”_

Kawanishi had done that thing he always did with his nose when he wasn’t quite laughing all the way. Not so much a snort, but an amused sort of grunt. _“That’s a swan, dipshit.”_ He’d lowered his head just a little when some old lady with too much jewelry gave him a dirty look for swearing.

_“Okay, well, you still gotta be an asshole to waste all that money on a bird. Showoffs.”_

_“Come on, Shirabu-chan is nice.”_

_“Okay, okay. She seems cool. Her brother’s kind of… Is there a fancy word for ‘prick’ that won’t get me in trouble-- oh, god, nevermind. That woman keeps glaring at us.”_

_“Don’t shit-talk people in their own house, Eita.”_

_“He’s not very friendly.”_

_“He probably wants to be here as much as you.”_

“Semi-san?” Akaashi’s voice cut through the memory. The very completely useless memory that failed to offer Semi any sort of new information. Or, new-old information.

“Sorry,” he muttered, though unsure of why he would apologize to any of these people to begin with. He followed Akaashi down to the lower floor. “Who owns this place?” he asked, once he was beside Akaashi again.

Akaashi looked off, and seemed to contemplate his answer, for a moment. “Shirabu-san.”

“Right, but, _which_ Shirabu?”

Akaashi looked to Semi from the corners of his eyes as he walked to the floor’s center. “The one you just spoke with is the only one.”

“No,” Semi said, because lost memories aside, he’d at least reclaimed enough to know better than that. “He has a sister, right? And what about their parents?”

“Neither are present. Shirabu-san is the only remaining Shirabu in this household. He is in charge, followed by Oikawa-san, then myself.”

“You being… Akaashi, was it?”

An affirmative nod.

“Then, Oikawa would be…?”

Akaashi twirled a finger up above his head, pointing to imaginary crown-like spikes. “The one with the bones. I’d suggest that you stay away from him while you’re adjusting to this place. He can be a bit... much to handle.”

Because Semi was so intent on adjusting in the first place.

“What happened to the rest of the Shirabu family, then?”

Akaashi stopped in the center of the swan, but did not offer an answer. Semi furrowed his brow.

“Did he kill them?”

Akaashi’s eyes found Semi again, and he swore he could see something like the beginnings of a smirk forming. Then, he turned away, back toward the stairs. Between the two sets of steps, was a large set of double doors. Two more rested on either side, but Akaashi made for the ones at the center. “Our tour will begin here,” he said, and parted the doors to allow entrance.

Beyond them was a vast, mostly-empty room, with fading floors that Semi knew had once been polished and perfect for dancing. There were pillars in rows, and sconces adorning the walls, some of them with signs of a spider making its home, others with cracks and chips in their frosted glass shades.

Curtains lined the far wall, hiding what Semi assumed would be windows behind them. Chairs and tables were stacked and towered along the windowless walls, denied the use they were intended for. Seemingly abandoned with them, in the far corner of the room, was an elegant grand piano, all black with gold leaf-like detailings engraved along its lower edges.

It had seemed abandoned back then, too. He recalled the thing blocked off from the rest of the party. Music had played over the speakers, and people danced around it like it hadn’t existed. Semi hadn’t been dancing. Kawanishi had, when he was dragged off by Shirabu’s sister. Semi had been sitting in one of those chairs, making idle conversation with… with….

“I wouldn’t advise that you spend too much time in this room,” Akaashi’s voice cut through the memory again. “Or many others, for that matter. I may say this a few times as I’m showing you around. Please understand that I’m only showing you these rooms now, so that curiosity doesn’t lead you here on your own at a worse time.”

That was the closest thing to legitimately funny Semi had heard since he’d woken up. Did Akaashi not know what he’d already seen downstairs? Did he really think some empty ballroom could be more of a threat than a hall full of ghosts? Or… well, Tendou?

“A worse time being, what?” he asked anyway.

“You’ve clearly come to the conclusion that this place isn’t normal.” At Semi’s flat stare, Akaashi turned away from him, blocking some of the candle’s light and shadowing his back. “That would not be limited to what you saw downstairs, whatever that may have been, nor cases like Oikawa-san’s appearance. Every step you take in this manor is a dance with something far more horrific than us, Semi-san.”

He said “us,” but Semi didn’t want to consider whether or not that included himself. He wasn’t sure if it was in his favor or not to ask Akaashi what made _him_ horrific, either.

“Being that you are so desperate to find an escape, I understand that you will likely be tempted to explore this place on your own. However, being that you will not _find_ an escape, I would highly suggest you not walk into unknown spaces without company. There are malicious beings lurking in every possible space, be it spirits or otherwise.” He turned, stepped past Semi for the double doors they’d come through. “Be it in the walls, or in the breath of air you just took. They are here. And some of us are more susceptible to them than others.”

Semi’s eyes lingered on the piano before he turned to follow after Akaashi. “And what does _that_ mean?”

“It means, Semi-san, that while you are wise to keep yourself so guarded among us, you are perhaps doing so for the wrong reasons.” He stopped outside the doors, between the two arcing sets of stairs. “The ill-intent of the dead may influence even the best of us. However, most of us have made it this long, despite that. It’s just a matter of spotting the real threats, and knowing whom not to piss off.”

“You say ‘this long,’ but how long is that?” He stepped out of Akaashi’s way when he moved to close the double doors behind them.

“And that...” Akaashi said, following the creak of the doors, “...falls under the category of things Shirabu-san would not appreciate me telling you.”

“Of course it does.”

Akaashi tapped the ornate engravings of one of the doors. “You’ll hear sounds from in there, from time to time. Some charming, some concerning.” His cold eyes met with Semi’s when he moved back to the center of the foyer. “I suggest you don’t look into either.”

Such suggestions, Semi found, came with the territory of a _lot_ of rooms, on their tour.

“Never move that bracelet from its shelf.” “Do not speak too loudly within this room.” “That door doesn’t open. I’m not sure it ever has. I don’t recommend you try.” “That oval rug? Don’t set foot on it. Don’t touch it, at all. Do not even look at it, if you’d rather be safe than sorry.” “Ignore that growling, it’s harmless.” “Ignore the laughing. There’s nothing humorous about what’s going on behind _that_ door.” “Yes, I know, I see the red puddle. I’ll see that someone has that cleaned. Semi-san, please calm yourself, it’s only blood.” “Refrain from using that bathroom. There are plenty of others.”

“You must not pass this one without offering a bow of the head,” Akaashi had said of one door in particular, just as he was offering it just that.

When Semi had asked, “Why?” without giving so much as a nod, he felt something cold sweep at his feet, and he fell on his face.

The bedrooms, Semi learned, were all upstairs. The floor they were on was the main floor, at ground level. One door led to more rooms such as those in the basement, apparently, but they did not venture into those. “There is no need for that right now,” Akaashi had said.

What he did show him, was not one, but _two_ dining halls, a few restrooms, an art gallery that Semi only got a glimpse of, a billiard room, multiple drawing rooms (of which there were supposedly more of upstairs), and then, the kitchen.

The kitchen and the restrooms were, apparently, the only spaces where it was acceptable to use the power.

“Being that our contact with the outside world is so limited, we don’t have the luxury of electricity. And, yes, Semi-san, that also means no wifi. Shirabu-san has found a way to channel enough magic to power a few things here and there, but we limit that to necessities. The fridge, for one. We have just about every other cooking appliance, but for larger meals, we use the brick oven to prevent strain on Shirabu-san. Most toilets and sinks are safe to use as well, of course.”

Using the lights or anything else was strictly prohibited unless it was an absolute emergency, however, which explained the piles of candles in just about every room and hall.

Once Akaashi felt that the important places on the main floor had been touched upon, he directed Semi to two towering glass doors, much taller than the two of them combined. He turned a palm out to it, offering Semi to go through.

“You wanted to leave, right? I will show you as far as we can go.”

 _As far as they could go,_ his ass. He was going to make a run for freedom the first chance he got.

He could just barely see the moon shining through the glass, with that strange off-color haze surrounding it. He reached for the handle, but his hand rested there rather than pulling the thing open.

Suspicious. This was too suspicious.

When he waited too long, Akaashi stepped up to take the door beside him. “Have you changed your mind? No? Perhaps you should act, if you’re so sure of your decisions, Semi-san.”

Akaashi pushed past Semi, and a cold chill filtered through the open door. Semi shivered, and wondered, briefly, if the cold was from the outdoors, or Akaashi himself.

When he stepped outside, logic proved to be in the right, for once. It was dark, and cold. A jacket would have been nice. Maybe he should have taken up the offer to change clothes first, after all. At least what he was wearing had dried by now.

Akaashi motioned for him to follow. He led Semi down the porch, past fancy metal chairs and tables, and down the short steps to withered grass and dirt. There were stepping stones leading out into the yard, but it was hard to tell where they led in the dark. He thought he heard water, maybe, but he was pretty much done with inspecting bodies of water for the day. Or forever.

Above them, that strange purple-ish haze continued to warp the moon and stars. He squinted up at it, but not for long, when Akaashi warned him to mind his steps.

Aside from the faint sound of water, he could hear more of mother nature’s soundtrack. Bugs, owls, frogs, completely normal things that you’d expect to hear outdoors. He was almost waiting to hear a horrified shriek or ghostly moan mix in with it all, but those sounds never came.

Akaashi led him past an old bench swing, and Semi hoped it was only swinging with the breeze. Leaves and dead grass crunched beneath their feet, and soon they were standing before a tall, wooden fence. The gate was just before them, and its lock was broken. Rusted. Had been so for a long time, by the looks of it.

Akaashi pushed the gate open, stepped past the fence, and waved to the space beyond them.

A trail led out further into the woods, but just yards down the path, a purple something cut across it. Like a fog, it cloaked the world beyond it, and it made the air thicker and colder the nearer you came. Unlike a fog, it began abruptly in a straight line across the ground, and grew tall, up toward the sky, curving and forming a dome above them.

“This,” Akaashi said, without moving from the fence. “Is why you won’t be finding an escape.”

Semi was still staring up at the sky, where the dome clouded the view and made the moon look so purple. “And this…?”

“A barrier. Forcefield. I’m not entirely sure what the proper term is. None of _us_ put it here.” He only offered the wall the smallest of offended glares. “A curse, is what we call it. It’s thick, and it’s hard to judge entirely how far out the fog goes, but no one leaves this side of it. We can get so far through, before it begins to eat at you and kick you out.” He made a vague gesture at the path. “The outer edge seems to repel people, to the extent that most have forgotten this place exists. Or, at the very least, they find themselves distracted into leaving if they try to approach it.”

Semi squinted, then turned suspicious eyes onto Akaashi. “How would you know what the outer edge is like, if none of you can pass through?”

Akaashi’s gaze lingered on the path, at first. Likely trying to decide whether that information was safe to share, or not.

Evidently, it was.

“That would be the same reason we are able to fill our kitchen without leaving,” he said. “That is, while they don’t live among us… there is an anomaly.”

“Someone’s an exception?” Semi glared, and took a step toward the fog.

“Emphasis on the ‘one’ in ‘someone,’ yes. I would not go any further than that, Semi-san.”

“I’m supposed to just believe you and stand around? You don’t look like you actually plan on trying to stop me.”

Akaashi shrugged. “If you would rather act on blind hopes than on reason, then so be it. I won’t stop you, so long as you assure Shirabu-san that I strongly implored you return to the manor, rather than doing whatever you’re intending to do right now.”

This was just as bad as following Tendou around. He felt like he was being played with, talked into a trap via some reverse-psychology bullshit.

“If you intend to test it out, it’s best you do so now. You’ll have gained the sense to avoid it once I’ve dragged your body back inside, anyhow.”

_It’s a trap. It’s a trap. It’s a trap._

Or, he could be telling the truth, which would probably be just as horrible an outcome. Still, if there was the slightest, tiniest sliver of hope that freedom was lying beyond this fog…

Semi turned his glare to the wall, and took long strides toward its edge. The nearer he came, the stronger the feeling of dread overwhelmed him, and he didn’t think it was just his own thoughts at work, either.

“Shall I offer something to bite down on? You’re about to be in incredible pain.”

Semi ignored him. Tried to, anyhow. He lifted his hand to tap at the wall, but it sunk through thick fog rather than making contact with anything solid, or whatever he had expected a dome of cursed magic to feel like. It was too thick, though. Far too thick to be simple fog. But, then, it was _purple,_ and pulsing with something awful, so of course “simple” couldn’t have been a proper descriptor.

It took some effort, with more weight than he expected put into it as he pressed his hand through the haze.

Everything after that was a mess.

His thoughts blurred. He was stepping further in without realizing so, and the fog swallowed and dragged him with a force he couldn’t fight back. His vision went black, and he closed his eyes, if only to fight off the feeling of needles carving intricate patterns into them.

And it felt like that all over. He couldn’t tell if it was real, or the fog playing tricks on him, but the feeling of something scratching at his skin, then carving deeper, deeper into him refused to cease.

Was he still moving? Was he still alive? He could still feel, but nothing he felt was _good_ in the least.

His hand found something solid. Smooth like glass, but pulsing with a force that screamed _turn back_ in its loudest cries, and it blurred with what he swore were the cries of other victims in the distance.

That force blew him back with a loud _snap_ that made him swear he’d felt blood in his ears.

And he didn’t feel much of anything after that.


	5. That Kid in the Corner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making friends left and right.

The world around him didn't quite process right away. Lost between asleep and awake, Semi could only make out a conversation being had nearby. Very nearby. Right over him, possibly, but he couldn't be too sure.

_"They're healing right up! Look at that!"_

Wasn't that one of the voices he'd heard talking to Tendou in the hall? He didn't have a face to put with it, though.

_"I had expected them to heal faster. The wall must have done something to slow the mending process."_

That voice, he recognized more, and hearing it did well to remind Semi of recent events.

The recollection of pins pricking his eyes had him snapping them wide open. That painful sensation was gone, but his skin was still tingling with the remnants of the wall's magic.

"Oh, you're awake again," came Akaashi's voice. "That was rather reckless of you. I hope you've learned your lesson."

Who he was looking at was not Akaashi, however. A pair of striking, golden eyes were hovering over him, accompanied by spiked back black and white hair that made his own coloring look tame. Maybe it was more on par with Tendou's. Or wilder. He wasn't sure.

He was very sure, however, that the crazy-haired person was about as not-human as Tendou, because there were absolutely stitches circling the person's neck.

"You alright, man? You look kinda freaked out."

Yes. How dare he look even slightly afraid.

"Bokuto-san, please give him some space."

Crazy Hair, or Bokuto, apparently, moved out of Semi's sight, giving him instead, a view of the high ceiling that towered over the glass doors they had left through earlier. He just wasn't sure how long ago "earlier" was.

"If you've gotten all mindless urges out of your system, now, I can show you to your room. I doubt you're in the mood to continue our tour."

Semi rubbed at his eyes, and pushed himself up so he was sitting on the tile. It was drizzling outside, and his hair and clothes felt a little wet, now that he thought about it.

Okay, not just wet. Filthy. He looked down at himself, and his clothes were absolutely covered in mud and leaves. He supposed that was better than blood, but it was still unpleasant.

"What did you do, drag me through the dirt?" he asked, and then the memory of purple fog shook through him. He curled his arms around himself. "...Oh."

"I only dragged you past the gate. Bokuto-san helped me carry you inside." Akaashi was standing with his arms crossed, staring out the glass of the doors with an unreadable expression. "At least you woke up. We'd best not tell Shirabu-san about this. If you appear too self-damaging, he may take measures to restrain you again."

Semi narrowed his eyes. "He? When we were in that room before, he said ‘we’ when he mentioned the… knocking me out with magic or… _whatever.”_ He rubbed at his head. “So, that wasn’t a group effort, then.”

“Or perhaps you are reading too much into simple words. It could have been either.” A tapping sound came from outside the glass. “I will not be elaborating, either way.”

More tapping. Louder. Akaashi didn’t seem bothered, and the other guy was still more interested in Semi. He kept staring at him all wide-eyed with this dumb grin, as though Semi might do a dance for him.

“Of course you won’t,” Semi muttered, and he followed Akaashi’s gaze to the doors. Something was on the floor of the porch, desperately clawing at the glass and leaving muddy streaks along it.

“Don’t worry. It won’t get in here,” Akaashi assured him. “While you’re inside, concern yourself with what is inside. While you’re out there… well, you get the point.”

“What is that thing?” It was too dark outside, and the creature was all covered in mud, but its mouth hung open far too wide to be human, and the way its arms and legs were bent didn’t make any sense.

“That’s incredibly rude, Semi-san. That was a person, at one point. Do you speak of the deceased this way, too?”

Semi dared to take his eyes off the creature, and he swore he saw another tiny, upward curl of Akaashi’s lip.

Bokuto’s smile was less subtle. He threw his head back with a laugh too loud for the quiet of these halls. _“Aghaasheeeee!”_ Semi was quite certain that was not how Akaashi’s name was meant to be pronounced. The person in question did not correct him, however. _“You’re_ talkin’ about people being rude? I guess the wall didn’t hurt you so bad, if you can still make jokes!”

Right. If Akaashi had dragged Semi out from that fog, then he had to have gone in, himself….

He didn’t seem bothered, though. Mildly annoyed that he had to do the dragging, maybe, but that looked to be the extent of it.

“We were just casually walking out there, and those _things_ were wandering around?” Semi pointed to the creature clawing at the glass. Respect for the dead, or former-humans, was not high on his list of concerns right now.

“None of them came after you, did they? They’re probably just startled by the rain.” Akaashi was no longer concerned with it, it seemed. He was more busy with dusting off some dirt clinging to his clothes. His pants were caked with mud. It was going to take a bit of cleaning. “As I said, keep yourself concerned with where you are. What’s out there won’t bother you right now.”

“I’m so fucking convinced.”

“Would you like me to show you to your room now, or would you prefer to continue gawking at the undead?”

Semi shot him his most convincing glare. It was mostly genuine. He kind of wanted to cry, though. Just a little. He thought he was doing a good job of holding that in.

“You think I’m going to get any sleep in this place?”

“Well, no. You did just wake from quite the extensive nap. You were also unconscious, just now, so I suppose you’re set for a good while. You’ll have to pass out again eventually, though, and it’s probably in your best interest to know where your bed is, when the time comes.”

How thoughtful.

Akaashi had apparently given up on trying to clean his clothes. “Would you feel better if you weren’t alone? I’m sure Tendou-san would be more than happy to keep you company, if Shirabu-san isn’t too upset with him.”

“Fuck no.”

“Solitude it is, then.” Akaashi plucked his candle from the floor and turned from the door, accompanied by a flash of lightning that filled the room. It casted an unsettling shadow from the creature outside, and made Semi shiver.

Black and white flooded his vision again, followed by striking gold and a bright grin. Bokuto was leaning at an awkward angle to infiltrate Semi’s personal space, his face blocking his view of whatever images the lightning conjured upon the tile.

“Didja hear him?” he asked, then straightened and took a step back. “He’ll leave you sittin’ here all alone with that thing, if you don’t hurry it up! Your legs aren’t broken or anything. I would know, I carried you back. They seemed fine.”

Semi probably should have answered, instead of staring at the uneven flesh scarring along Bokuto’s throat. He knew he saw stitches, but it seemed far too much of a stereotype, for the guy with black and white hair to be stitched together or something. He half-expected to see bolts along his neck, too.

He realized he was staring, though, and tried to meet Bokuto’s golden eyes instead. One was a brighter gold than the other. Rather, the other was closer to amber, maybe. Some patches of skin were different shades from others, and scars curved along the left side of his face, close to his ear, too. The ear looked wrinkled, as did an area surrounding his right nostril.

“You okay there? Here, I’ll help ya up.”

Bokuto extended a hand. The fingers looked odd, with scars and patches of skin that didn’t quite match up. Their sizes didn’t seem quite right in relation to each other, either.

There was a _“pfffft”_ noise, followed by, “Agaaashee, this guy looks like he’s seen a ghost.”

Akaashi only stopped to turn and show Bokuto just how unamused he was by that statement. It wasn’t just displeasure. Akaashi looked like he’d smelled something rotten. Like a box of socks and eels and other questionable meats.

Bokuto rolled his mismatched eyes. “C’mon, it was funny!”

“Yes, Bokuto-san, very clever. May we move on, now? Semi-san, it’s rude to stare. He’s trying to be polite.”

“Yeah, don’t be rude! Lemme help ya up!”

Semi let him do so, and he tried not to stare at his hands any longer, despite the way the suspicious scars made his own skin crawl.

Bokuto smacked him on the back once he was upright, then laughed at the way Semi stiffened at his touch. He spun on his heel and caught up with Akaashi, waving for Semi to follow.

He followed, but not without casting one last glance at the purple haze clouding the moon outside.

Akaashi did not speak as much as he had when he’d been showing Semi around. Rather, Bokuto’s mouth was running nonstop, and Akaashi seemed content to let him take the lead on that front.

It was for the best, probably. Bokuto was energetic, but not in the creepy way that Tendou was energetic. He certainly wasn’t the calming sort of terrifying he felt from Akaashi, either.

Appearances aside, it was kind of refreshing.

“...and, so, Shirabu said we had to get rid of the ouija board. Which, I mean, we don’t need one, anyway! I can see the other ghosts, just fine. I can translate for everyone. You don’t need some stupid glass with a bunch of letters. Kuroo said he wanted to make sure I wasn’t making up what the other ghosts were saying, but he just pissed off that one that keeps making faces over my shoulder in the bathroom mirror. Y’know, that one by the kitchen, Aghaashee? I don’t think you can see him. He’s a real jackass, though.”

While he was sure to take note of the dangers of bathroom ghosts, Semi was still a little more focused on the scars trailing Bokuto's skin than anything. For the first time, he actually willingly wanted to get a closer look at something unsettling in this place, without one of Tendou's stupid riddles forcing him into it. Were they even scars, or stitches? The discolored skin made him think the latter, and he was half-tempted to ask if someone had intentionally made his hair to look even more like Frankenstein's monster.

"If you have a question, then ask it, Semi-san."

Akaashi hadn't even looked his way, from what he could tell.

Semi turned his gaze down to his feet as they walked. "It's nothing," he muttered. Bokuto seemed... friendly enough. For whatever he was. Still, Semi didn't want to risk pissing off some kind of undead monster. Or, even worse, Akaashi.

Akaashi stopped just before a door with the number three engraved on its plaque. He turned to Semi, his hands linked behind his back.

"And this is where we part ways." He nodded to the door. "I'd forgotten to get your key from Shirabu-san. I'll have it brought to you, soon. I hope you don't mind leaving your door unlocked, in the meantime."

Something about the way he said it made Semi feel very much like he'd rather keep his door locked. And here he'd thought he was fed up with keys.

"If you need anything," Akaashi continued, as he handed off the candle to Semi, "Well, hopefully you'll remember your way to Shirabu-san's study."

"Or just yell!" Bokuto added. Then, he leaned close to Semi, golden eyes half closed in an almost threatening way. "But we're all used to screams, in this place. You may just get tuned out."

Akaashi stepped past the door. A brush of his hand against Bokuto's arm had him following after him. Bokuto waved a goodbye to Semi as they disappeared down the hall, but Semi didn't wave back.

Instead, he watched until they were out of sight, and then he found himself facing the door.

He could only think that he'd better not open it to find that he had some sort of roommate. A ghost, or another gross tentacle creature. Or... whatever the hell that thing outside had been.

He wouldn't find out by standing in front of the thing all night.

The room past the door was far more equipped for living than those he'd found downstairs. They had a satisfying lack of claw marks on the walls, on top of that.

The bed was large, complete fluffy purple covers with silver, curling designs. They were faded, and probably hadn't been touched at all for some time, but it was far more welcoming than he'd been expecting, either way.

He had his own fire place (void of wood, for the time being), a chest, and plenty of shelves. There was a door that probably led to a closet in the far corner. The room was much larger than his little apartment's back home. At least twice the size, maybe even larger.

He jumped when the door closed behind him. He hadn’t even realized he’d stepped inside.

There were no signs of anything suspicious behind him, however. That was fine. Doors closed on their own all the time, even in normal situations, right?

Sure.

He made his way past the bed and to the old curtain shading the window. The cloth was heavy, maybe even thick enough to serve as blackout curtains. That would have been nice, back home, but Semi wasn't sure how much darkness he wanted to invite, here.

He pulled them open, letting the soft moonlight in through the glass. He lit some candles above the fireplace, then set down the one Akaashi had given him on the nightstand.

The next several minutes were spent braving himself to inspect various parts the room for potential threats.

The fireplace was, as he’d already figured, empty. As was the chest, and the closet. He left the closet door open, just so he could stay rest assured that this hadn’t changed.

Nothing was hiding beneath his bed, and by the time he'd convinced himself that the bed was, maybe, safe to sit on, he saw _it._

In the corner of the room, where the fire place's wall met with the window's, something hung in the air close to the ceiling.

It was small, maybe only two feet tall, in the vague shape of a child, but its arms twisted out from its body and broke apart like the roots of a tree, dangling from it without purpose as it hovered in still silence.

Its head lacked a nose, or any ears or hair. Just a white-ish, round, lumpy thing with gaping holes where the eyes and mouth could have been, not unlike the face-like openings he'd seen on that tentacle creature.

These, however, didn't ooze black water, nor did this thing give chase upon seeing Semi. If it could even see him at all.

Oozing or not, if Semi couldn't accept the thought of sleeping in this place before, he definitely couldn't while _that_ was hovering there.

Slowly, he slid back off the bed, fully anticipating the thing to make a sudden movement in response.

Nothing.

But that was good. Even if it not moving somehow made him more nervous.

He tiptoed toward the door, but it's gaze didn't follow him. It kept staring at the bed, and Semi dared to look at the furniture, wondering if something or someone else had been there all along.

He didn't see anything peculiar (a first), and he quickly decided that it was a mystery he'd rather not solve, in any case.

He turned the door handle as quietly as he could. Maybe Shirabu would still be in the study, or maybe he could still catch Akaashi down the hall.

He forgot all about trying to be quiet as soon as he opened the door, and he slammed it right in the face of the person on the other side.

Semi pressed his back to the door and cursed his luck.

"Semisemiiiiii," came a whine from the other side, and at the sound of someone turning the handle, Semi latched onto the thing to keep it still.

And that creepy bastard in the corner still hadn't moved.

"Who-- _What_ is my roommate?" he asked, tilting his head toward the door without taking his eyes off the thing.

Tendou laughed. The asshole.

"You're gonna slam a door in my face and then ask me for help?"

"I don't want your help, I want to know why there's something floating in the corner of this room."

There came a thoughtful, very purposely dragged out hum. "You don't want help?"

"No, I don't want your help. Your help has nearly gotten me killed enough times today."

"Have fun with your roommate, then!"

Tendou's footsteps grew further from the door, while the thing stayed put in the room. With a sharp inhale, Semi spun around to open the door again. In a small, reluctant voice, he said, "Help."

Tendou, stopping in his retreat, leaned backwards, tilting his head to look at Semi upside down, as any sane, normal, living person would.

"Semisemi's changed his mind?"

"Don't call me that." Semi opened the door all the way and allowed Tendou inside. He was sure he'd regret it, later. He pointed to the thing in the corner. "That. How do I make that go away?”

Tendou stared at the wall, then at Semi’s hand. Then, he stepped around to Semi’s side, leaning uncomfortably close while he closed one eye and followed the direction of Semi’s finger with the other.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Do _not_ tell me that.”

“What am I looking for, exactly? A spider? I’m sure you can handle another one of those, after today.”

The day that _he_ set up for him? The urge to thank him, maybe while testing the thickness of the window glass, was all too tempting.

Semi dropped his hand and glowered at him. “You have to see it. You’re…” He envisioned the bones beneath Tendou’s flesh, and the way said flesh had melted off of him before. “You’re _dead_. You should be able to see ghosts, shouldn’t you? Or, at least know how to deal with them?”

“Oh, it’s a _ghost_ we’re looking for!” Tendou slipped away from Semi’s side. He hooked a finger beneath his own chin and nodded to himself. “Well, then. I’m sure hallucinations are a reasonable response to your situation. Maybe they’ll go away, after you sleep it off.”

Because he hadn’t slept enough as it was.

Semi squinted at the thing, willing it to go away. “I’m not seeing things. I’m not going crazy.”

“Debatable.”

“Are you a figment of my imagination, too?” he asked, dryly.

Tendou pinched Semi’s cheek to prove otherwise.

Semi smacked his hand away, then froze, because pissing off the skeleton-horror-person probably wasn’t in his best interests.

But, Tendou didn’t seem too bothered. He just about skipped to the other side of the room, until he was standing beneath the ghastly thing. He tipped his body back and observed the space above.

“Looks pretty harmless.”

Semi was ready to strangle him. He wouldn’t do it, but oh, how nice the thought was. “You said you couldn’t _see_ anything.”

“Nah, I see it. You’re not imagining things, _yet.”_ He waved a hand at it, demanding attention, but received nothing. The thing only continued to stare off at the bed. Or... not stare. Or whatever one without eyes did when it was facing something. “Have you tried poking it?”

“I don’t want its _attention_. I want it to _leave.”_

Tendou eyed him with disappointment, as though Semi had just insulted his favorite band, or manga--

His thoughts were interrupted by the image of a skeleton kicked back in a chair, eyeless skull looking over some dumb comic book.

It was such a ridiculous thing to consider, but it somehow felt right, and Semi found himself looking at Tendou rather than the horrific thing in the corner of his room.

Granted, Tendou was also a horrific thing in the corner of his room. There were, presently, two horrific things in the corner of his room.

He shouldn’t have even been accepting it as _his room._

“You’re no fun, Semisemi.”

Semi tried to ignore another twitch in reaction to the name, while Tendou pulled a chair from beside the fireplace to a spot below the hovering ghost creature.

Semi tried very hard not to raise his voice. “What are you _doing?”_

“Chill for ten seconds, will ya?”

“You’re going to piss it off!” He ran his fingers through his hair, debating whether or not it would be a good idea to tackle Tendou to the ground before he could climb up the chair. Akaashi had mentioned the presence malevolent beings in this place. Harmless as this thing was acting now, it could very easily be one, or be affected by one. But, then, so could Tendou.

Tendou was already standing on the chair, on his toes, reaching up for the ghost.

The thought _“I hope it eats you”_ briefly crossed Semi’s mind, but he wasn’t even sure if he’d have meant it if he said it aloud. By all means, he should have.

Tendou was tall, and in truth, probably could have jumped and been able to swipe a hand at the ghost without use of the chair. Now, with him standing on the furniture, he had an even better opening. He brought his hands up to what may have vaguely been the ghost’s waist, but when he tried to grab it, his hands went right through, clapping together uselessly.

He stood frozen, with his hands together, somewhere inside the ghost’s body.

It had yet to react.

After a beat, he went from standing still, to wildly waving his arms about, swishing his hands in and out of the unmoving ghost. Semi hadn’t realized he was backing toward the exit, himself. He was already in the doorway when Tendou dropped his arms to his sides and turned to face him.

“I don’t think it’s gonna bother ya.”

“Maybe it just likes other dead things,” Semi suggested.

Tendou tilted his head too far, as usual. Semi supposed he’d, unfortunately, have to grow used to that, too.

“I’m not dead, though.”

“You’re sure as hell not _living.”_

“Beating hearts are overrated.” Tendou hopped down from the chair. His gaze flickered to Semi’s chest, and then he was staring back up at the ghost again. “I can’t think of many other rooms you can stay in that aren’t occupied with worse than this thing.” He watched it, thoughtfully, then spun around with the bright-eyed look of someone who’d been struck with a brilliant idea. “My room doesn’t have any ghosts!”

_“Hell no.”_

“Look,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and making his way over to Semi, “You can have this thing for company, or you can choose another oddity, but it doesn’t look like you’ll be having much privacy, tonight.” His mouth stretched in a wide, melting grin that showed bone. “Unless you’d rather spend another night in the basement.”

Between the gnarly thing in the corner, and the flesh _dripping_ down Tendou’s chin, Semi had to swallow back the urge to vomit. Again. This place was fucking with his stomach about as much as it was his head.

“I’m not going back down there.”

“Then where do you want to go, Semisemi?”

“Home.”

Tendou’s grin went stiff. The dripping stopped, and what goopy flash had fallen to the floor pulled itself up his pant leg to rejoin the rest of his skin. “You are home.”

No. No, no, no, he was not listening to this anymore. He was not going to have one more person tell him that he belonged here, when he wasn’t even allowed so much as an explanation of how he got there in the first place.

He turned, stepped out the door, but stopped in the hall. He didn’t know where else to go. Curling up in a ball seemed like a good idea, but something would find him, eventually. Eat him alive, maybe.

Even if he found peace, somehow, Akaashi had been right. He’d already slept so much, as it was. He wouldn’t be doing it again, any time soon.

He found himself sliding down against the wall beside the open door. By the time Tendou followed him out, Semi had opted for the curling up option, with his legs drawn up and his head on his knees, arms wrapped around himself.

There was the creak of the door, the light click of it closing, then the shuffling of footsteps a short ways away. Tendou had sat himself against the wall as well, with only the space of the door between them. He wasn’t curled up in some miserable state, like Semi. He was sprawled out, long, lanky legs stretched out into the hall while he tipped his head back against the wall.

Semi only offered him a moment’s glance before he was closing his eyes against his knees again. His pants were still ruined by black water and caked in mud, but he’d much rather shove his face in that than face literally anything else in this place, right now.

“Leave,” he eventually said, after an eternity of silence between the two of them.

“You gonna just sleep out here?” The bastard’s tone was annoyingly teasing. “You’d be safer in your room, you know. That thing in there’s harmless, probably.”

_Probably._

“What are you gonna do when something finds you out here, instead?”

Semi didn’t have an answer for that. If he had an answer, or any sort of plan that resembled anything remotely sane, he wouldn’t be curled up in the hallway next to a guy with dripping flesh.

“You shouldn’t sleep out here,” Tendou insisted.

“I’m not going to sleep.”

“You gonna just sit there and stare at your gross clothes all night, then?”

“I’ve slept enough.” For several years, for all he knew. “And even if I hadn’t, there’s no way I could, here. Definitely not in there, with _that.”_

Tendou hummed, like he was considering something. The sound did not bode well. “I could stay out here. Fend off whatever tries to gnaw at your flesh and bones.”

“Fuck off.”

“I could, but you’d be screwed, and then I’d be short my favorite Semisemi.”

_“Stop.”_ Semi held himself tighter, and something tingled in his fingertips, beneath his nails. “Stop calling me that. Don’t even say my name.”

“But--”

“It fucking _hurts.”_

Tendou went quiet, again. Unsettlingly quiet. Semi forced himself to peek over his arm, and his eyes locked with wide, reddish ones staring back at him. He couldn’t make out the expression, whether it was just surprise, or something deeper. Nor did he want to. With all the bullshit he put him through, Tendou didn’t deserve that much consideration.

Semi hid his face again.

“You said you remembered Shirabu.”

“Vaguely.”

“Just him?”

Tendou sounded hopeful. Maybe hurt. Maybe both.

“What does it matter?” Semi asked, after another painfully long pause. “If you want me to remember something else, then _help_ me.”

Tendou pulled up and crossed his legs with a frustrated groan. “I’m not _supposed_ to. Shirabu already chewed me out for messing around with you downstairs. Said I put way too much at risk, the killjoy.”

There were a lot of ways in which what he pulled downstairs was a huge risk. Regaining a few much wanted memories would not have been one of those risks, in Semi’s opinion.

With that bitter thought, came flashes of things he _had_ recalled. The sight of claws and blood on his hands, the imaginary screams of someone being tortured and torn apart, and the sickening, wet sounds that came with it.

His hands were in his hair before he knew it. His fingers were still tingling at the nails, and they dug into his scalp, desperate to tear up those images.

His heart was doing that annoying thing again, where it didn’t feel like it belonged in his body, and Semi began to think that maybe there _was_ a good reason they didn’t want him to remember.

Yet, still, he wanted to. Needed to.

The next image playing behind his eyelids was that of the stack of papers he’d found upon the table when he woke up. When he opened his eyes again, to the sight of his filthy clothes, his hands had gone still in his hair.

“Did he know those were there?”

He hadn’t meant to ask it aloud. It was mostly a whisper, but Tendou made a questioning sound as a sign that he heard him. Semi did not elaborate, however.

Shirabu had to have known those papers were in that room. They were in such an obvious place, and there was so much dust, they couldn’t have been put there recently. So… what? Maybe Shirabu hadn’t expected anyone to release Semi from the glass without his permission. Maybe he’d intended to hide those records before Semi had a chance to see them.

Maybe Semi should have taken them with him.

Or not, because they’d just have gotten soaked in black water or eaten by some tentacle creature.

He’d shut that monster in that very room, at one point. It may have destroyed all of the papers, already. Semi wanted to kick himself. He wanted to get his hands on them again, but he did not want to go back down there.

_“I have narrowed down my search for a human subject to a select few...”_

The memory of the paper was replaced by that of a mirror, written over with blood.

_“Clickety-clack, the demon’s back.”_

Tendou had let him out of that glass, or so Semi had gathered. But Tendou had not hid those papers.

And that hint...

“You said you weren’t gonna fall asleep,” Tendou hummed from beside the door.

“I’m not asleep,” Semi mumbled back.

The room with the claw marks. The message on the shards of ceramic.

_“Under your wardrobe.”_

_His wardrobe._

Semi lifted his head, which was absolutely _aching_ about as much as his chest, in his attempts to piece any of this bullshit together.

“Shirabu isn’t mad because your games almost killed me,” he stated, finally, and Tendou laughed.

“No one’s worried about _that.”_

_Thanks, asshole._

Semi’s mouth felt dry as he spoke. “He’s mad because you might have triggered more memories.”

Tendou only hummed.

“You had other riddles planned.”

He made the mistake of looking at Tendou, who was _grinning_ at him, now. “Do you know how much time I had to come up with some of this shit? I could’ve kept you busy for _days.”_

Semi really didn’t want him to.

Tendou pulled up one leg and propped his chin on it. He sighed a dreamy sort of sigh while he stared off at the wall ahead. “I’ll have to clean all that up, though, before Shirabu takes my skin for it.”

Semi’s mind did him the pleasure of conjuring an image of Shirabu pulling the goopy flesh off Tendou’s bones and shoving it into some kind of oversized jar.

“It’ll take _forever_ to hide all the evidence, though.” The stupid grin continued to linger, and he seemed close to singing out the words. “I mean, I had to write the blood fresh on that mirror and all, but some of the shit I had planned was from y--” He stopped on a word that Semi presumed to be _“years,”_ and amended, “...from awhile ago. I don’t know if I can even remember where I hid everything!”

Oh, sure, he didn’t remember, but he expected Semi to find them, anyway?

…

_He expects Semi to find them anyway._

Semi stared, while Tendou threw out his hands and laid himself down on the floor of the hall. “Oh well! I’ll just have to work fast, and hope no one stumbles upon anything they shouldn’t! No one can say I didn’t try!”

Semi did not understand a lot about this place, but he understood exactly what Tendou was trying to imply.

And he did not like it one bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe eating some food would help out with that weak stomach, buddy.


	6. A Midnight Snack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Semi still doesn't know how long he was asleep for, but he knows that he's hungry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-wrote this chapter from scratch three times. THREE TIMES.  
> I've finally wound up with something half-decent, so here you go. I hope you like. At the very least, you'll probably enjoy yourself more than Semi has.

Semi Eita hadn’t expected to find himself waking on the hallway floor with nothing but a candle in front of him.

It wasn’t the location itself that surprised him, but rather, the fact that he’d even managed to fall asleep to begin with.

He hadn’t even thought he  _ wanted _ to sleep. He’d been staring at various spots on the walls and ceiling for at least two hours. He figured he’d passed out from exhaustion at some point after that. Truth be told, he was a little upset with himself for doing so. That  _ thing _ could have come out of his room, or any number of other strange occurrences could have taken place while he was unconscious. Or he could’ve knocked the fucking candle over in his sleep.

He wondered, briefly, if burning something in this hell house could somehow dispel the wall outside.

Maybe best not to test that one out.

He sat up with a yawn and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t remember how much of the candle was left before he passed out, but it there was hardly a quarter of the stick remaining, now. He didn’t exactly use candles all that often at home, as far as he could recall, so that information was hardly helpful in telling how much time had passed.

He wondered where his phone was, or if it was even in the building at all.

Probably didn’t have service here, anyway. At least he’d have a fucking clock, though.

What he  _ did _ know, was that there was no longer a second body on the other side of his doorframe.

Semi squinted into the darkness, then tugged the candle closer, just to be sure. It only lit so much of the hall, but Tendou Satori was nowhere within sight.

Probably gone to clean up those stupid hints that Shirabu apparently threw a fit over.

The hints that Semi was probably supposed to find before Tendou got rid of them.

He could get a start on that, now that he’d rested.

Or he could  _ not _ be stupid again, and actually follow Akaashi’s advice about not wandering the manor alone. That advice had been one of the few reasonable things he’d heard since waking up in the basement, and he’d already ignored Akaashi’s perfectly reasonable advice once, which had turned out…  _ well. _

He recalled the needle-in-the-eye sensation caused by the wall with a shudder and drew his knees in toward himself. An obscene growl filled the hall, and he panicked for all of two seconds before he realized it was his own stomach.

He could follow Akaashi’s advice, but he didn’t know how long that’d mean sitting alone in this hallway. Starving. After all, he probably hadn’t eaten in… who knows,  _ years? _

Ugh.

He was pretty sure he remembered how to get to the kitchen from here. He could manage that much on his own, right? He couldn’t wander around that damned basement again on an empty stomach like this.

Said stomach made another noise, and he wasn’t entirely sure if it was the hunger, or at the thought of going down there again.

“Kitchen,” he whispered to himself, cementing his final decision. He pushed himself to his feet and made it a total of three steps from the door before he stopped again.

On the floor, just a short ways from where Tendou had been laying earlier, was now a small pile of clothes.

Semi stared down at the pile, then at the filthy crap he was still wearing, and put two and two together.

He plucked the clothes from the floor. Shirt, jeans, underwear. All his size. Kinda weird, but much needed. Maybe not as needed as a shower, but Semi didn’t even think he could trust the showers in this place.

He changed out in the hall, because even if the walls had eyes, he felt better thinking there was a possibility of not being seen there, as opposed to definitely being watched by that creepy fucker hovering in the bedroom.

Not that modesty was highest on his priorities at the moment.

Candle in hand, he left the gross, bloody clothes next to the door without much care and started in the direction of the kitchen. Or, of what he was… ninety percent sure was the direction of the kitchen.

He tried very hard to keep his eyes set on the path in front of him, and  _ not _ on any other distractions. Still, it was hard to ignore the rattling of a door or the mysterious inky stuff oozing out from a crack in the wall. He tried to dismiss what might have been a face staring back through a mirror, and tried to think of everything as some sort of stupid fun house in attempt to ease his nerves.

It was just like that one theme park ride. He’d turn a corner and find some ghosts tipping their hats and asking for a ride.

Except, Semi wasn’t in a doom buggy on a set of tracks. He was very much in control of what parts of this place he explored, and he’d yet to find any mirrors or projectors that could be responsible for what he’d seen. Or felt.

He’d much rather be at a theme park.

Preferably a not-haunted one.

When the end of the hall split off in two directions, he struggled to recall which way Akaashi had led him from. He was pretty sure it was the hall to the right, but after about four more turns of “pretty sure,” Semi began to reconsider this whole wandering around alone thing again.

Eventually, he found himself staring up a dilapidated flight of stairs, and he knew for certain he’d made a wrong turn somewhere. Where that somewhere was, he wasn’t entirely sure.

The stairs led upward, to a floor Semi now realized Akaashi had never shown him during their tour. He found it odd, actually, that he hadn’t noticed any other sets of stairs on this level leading to the next floor, when there were  _ several _ that led to the main floor below. Even the basement, he’d learned, had multiple entrances.

Maybe it was just a small attic, and this was the only way up. He held his candle out further for a better look. Four or five steps had collapsed completely, leaving a gap in the path. The narrow steps were closed in by walls on either side, leaving Semi no way to inspect the gap without climbing up the steps still available to him.

But he doubted he’d find food up there, so he wasn’t about to do that.

Hell, he’d probably be more likely to become something else’s food, if he did.

He began to withdraw his hand, but froze to the spot when something crumbled in front of him. Something fell from the step beyond the gap. Tiny waterfalls of dust and debris, falling into the dark hole below.

Semi swallowed and looked up the stairs, but everything beyond the gap was pure darkness. Small steps broke through the otherwise silence, and they were definitely from above, and not the collapsed space up ahead.

Kitchen. He needed to find the kitchen.

Slowly, quietly, he backed away from the stairs. The sound of footsteps was still faint, but present, and Semi did not intend to stick around and find out who or what they belonged to.

He waited until the stairs were hardly visible through the dark to turn around, and even that he did with the anticipation that something would be staring him in the face when he did.

There was nothing but the empty corridor when he turned, however. With a shaky grip on the candle, he proceeded back the way he came, rethinking his steps in attempt to match them with those he’d taken with Akaashi.

He was so fucking lost.

He also hadn’t seen another of those convenient tables with candles and matches that usually dotted the halls, which made him wonder if this part of the manor was even frequently used by the other residents to begin with.

Not comforting.

As if anything could be.

His candle was incredibly short, at this point, with the tray of the holder almost full with melted wax. He had no idea how long it would last him, and being the absolute genius that he was, he left the box of matches with the pile of dirty clothes next to the room with Ghosty McCreepy Child.

“Can I wake up now?” he uttered to himself, as if he actually still thought there was a chance this was all a bad dream.

He spent the rest of his journey with nervous glances over his shoulder and frequent stops at every questionable sound he heard. Some of those sounds were his own footsteps.

He didn’t dare inspect a single door he passed. Not even the ones left ajar, begging for an intruder’s company. He remembered what the kitchen doors looked like, and those were the only doors he planned on touching until he found some food.

The next set of stairs he found were, thankfully, still in one piece. They weren’t any he’d been down so far, but at least he’d be on the same level as the kitchen, and that was a step in the right direction. In theory.

He was slow in his descent. The image of the gap in the other steps kept flashing in his head. Of all the ways he could die in this place, it’d be almost embarrassing if it was via starving to death under some old stairs.

Semi wasn’t sure at what point he’d started debating what sort of deaths would be  _ acceptable. _

He shook that morbid thought away. It had to be bad luck.

The stairs, thankfully, did not collapse on him, but he still had no clue where he was once he made it to the bottom. Another corridor, sure, he could tell that much, but that was of absolutely no help.

He didn’t even know what side of the manor he was on, anymore. The east, maybe. Possibly. Not that he was all that great with directions even in a normal scenario.

Instinct said to head west-- or, right, since he didn’t have any actual clue which way was north or south. He considered himself lucky to still recognize up from down.

In any case, instinct was all he had to go off of, so he begrudgingly followed that.

He continued on with his wandering, and actually fell to his knees when he saw the carpet of the halls give way to old tiles.

There were still some candles flickering along the foyer walls, all of them just as close to the ends of their wicks as the one in his hand.

He could still make out the stupid swan tiled on the floor, and he didn’t think he’d ever be so damn happy to see it. He knew where he was now, miraculously enough. Getting to the kitchen would be a breeze from here.

And of course, that blip of optimism was rudely trampled on by the time he made it to the swan’s beak. The remnants of his last footsteps echoed through the foyer when he stopped there to stare down at the dark hall that he knew led to the kitchen.

There was a pale, green light, floating up ahead. It was steady, unlike the flickering of the candles, and far too small and faint to reveal anything helpful. Everything surrounding it was shrouded in the dark, and when it moved, Semi was certain he heard footsteps.

He didn’t budge, but the tiny light hovered up and down and side to side in a pattern that Semi couldn’t quite make sense of.

A ghost? Could ghosts… be that small? It was far away, but Semi gathered it couldn’t have been much larger than his own hand. Whether there was something larger attached to or holding it was another question entirely.

He realized, among all of his staring and speculating, that he’d been holding his breath, and his body decided to do him the oh-so-helpful favor of drawing in a sudden, sharp breath through his nose to make up for it.

At the sound, the tiny light froze, and everything somehow became three times as uncomfortably silent as before.

When it moved again, it grew longer, or turned to show more of itself, or  _ something. _ Whatever it did, it gave Semi a better view.

It wasn’t one, single light.

It was several tiny ones, clustered together in two horizontal rows.

Sharp, wet, glowing rows.

Teeth.

He was looking at teeth.

They blinked out of sight, and Semi wondered if they really were attached to something. It was too dark and too far away to tell if they’d disappeared completely, or if something’s lips just closed over them.

He didn’t intend to get close enough to find out, and he stopped caring when they reappeared with the company of another three mouths.

Semi was suddenly hyper aware of every slight movement in the room, from the tilt of the first mouth, hovering above the rest, to the sweat descending down the side of his own face.

He tried to steady his breathing, this time, only letting air pass through his mouth as quietly as he could manage. There was a long, unsettling pause before all but one of the mouths blinked out of sight again. The one remaining was only barely noticeable through almost-closed lips, or whatever was partially cloaking it.

It turned again, and the footsteps retreated down the exact hallway that Semi needed to go down. Just when he was cursing his luck, it turned again, and disappeared with the sound of a door opening and closing.

Not the kitchen door.

Okay. Good.

He waited a painfully long moment to assure himself that the mouths weren’t going to make a sudden comeback, then he started for the dark, dark hall. He watched the door the mouths disappeared through with caution as he passed. He kept mindful of how loud his steps were, until he was far enough that he felt safe to pick up his pace again.

The halls in this part of the manor were so much larger than the rest of the house. They were complete with chaise lounges and small nooks, as well as those little tables that were always abundant with candles.

Except the first table that Semi happened across was completely empty.

“Of course,” he whispered, and pressed on. The pathetic height of his own candle was beginning to make him nervous.

There was a dining hall up ahead, and then another door down would be….

Semi’s stomach did the thanking for him when he finally found himself standing before the kitchen doors. He hoped the starved growl wouldn't attract the attention of any weird, floating teeth.

That thought only made him more eager to get inside, so he pushed the doors open with a slow creak and ventured beyond them.

The kitchen was hardly any brighter than the rest of the manor, with minimal moonlight being the only thing to shine through its windows. Semi, apparently, had not slept through much of the night, after all.

There were the clocks from the oven and microwave, but there wasn't a candle to be seen. He hoped the light in the fridge worked, at least.

Another hungry growl of the stomach, and he let the doors close behind him.

He hadn’t explored the kitchen too thoroughly during the tour, but it wasn’t as if its layout was difficult to figure out. He supposed some part of the manor had to be at least sort of normal. 

Everything on the kitchen counters was spaced out in a neat, organized manner. There were all of the usual electronics: a toaster, blender, etc, though few of them were actually plugged in. Even if the kitchen was an exception to the “no electricity” rule, it appeared that they still tried to keep the use of it limited there.

The fridge was larger than any fridge Semi had ever seen in person, with double doors for the fridge and freezer. It even had a water dispenser, but there was an old note taped to the buttons that warned not to use it. They probably didn’t have a way to replace the filter, anyway.

Well, no, they did, because they apparently had a way to fill the thing with  _ food. _

And it really was  _ full _ with food. Semi knew that he was starving, but the feeling hit him with full force the moment he opened the fridge door and saw just how packed the shelves were. His stomach made another obscene sound, and he put the candle aside on the counter to raid the thing.

The first thing he went for was a pack of sliced cheese. It wasn’t because he knew that he probably needed some protein after potentially years of sleep and no food, but because it was the first thing he saw, and he could easily tear into it and shove a slice in his watering mouth. It wasn’t the processed shit, either. It was, quite possibly, the best, most high quality cheese his taste buds had ever witnessed. No, in fact, it was  _ certainly _ the best.

Or maybe he was just really fucking hungry.

He felt a little like an animal as he dug through the contents of the fridge after that, another slice of cheese half-hanging out of his mouth. He decided he didn’t care.

There was an entire drawer of fresh deli meat, and a variety of condiments on the fridge door, a lot of them being foreign things that he didn’t recognize, and holy  _ fuck, _ there had to be bread around here, somewhere.

There were yogurts and veggies and jars of too many foods to process. Piles of packages and boxes that looked like takeout. Store-bought sushi that still looked fresh. He hadn’t even  _ touched _ the freezer or the pantry, yet, but Semi Eita was suddenly hell bent on making the best goddamn sandwich of his life, and not even an oozing tentacle creature would be able to stop him in his efforts.

When he turned away from the fridge, it was with two armfuls of cheeses and meats and just about whatever else looked like it’d taste good on bread. Granted, the meat he was a little skeptical about, but this fridge seemed far more trustworthy than the storage room in the basement with its weird eel… sock… business.

He shivered at the thought of  _ that _ being in any of these bags, but he was fairly confident that the bags just had sliced salami and ham in them. Or at least he was fairly desperate that this was all they had in them.

He dropped everything on the counter, along with a butter knife he found in the drawer, and searched around a bit more until he found the bread.

Even the bread was top tier. He could tell just by the packaging that the crust was just the right sort of crispy. Or, again,  _ maybe he was just really hungry. _

Where the hell were they getting this stuff? Wait, no, Akaashi had explained that, too.  _ “There is an anomaly,” _ he had said. Someone that could pass through the wall, and… acted as their errand runner, Semi supposed. Shirabu was probably loaded, with a house like this, but with them stuck here, it wasn’t like he could afford all of this forever, right…?

He frowned at the bread. He couldn’t have afforded this much food when he was working. He could barely afford to feed himself, let alone an entire manor of freaks. Granted, he didn’t know how many of them actually required food, being that some of them were… well, whatever one would call a case like Tendou’s. The skeleton had joked about being a dead man, then claimed he wasn’t dead. Semi was still very unclear on a lot of things, even with the memory loss aside.

He needed to know more about this “anomaly” person.

He turned away from the breadbox, but didn't make it more than a step toward the pile of soon-to-be-sandwich foods on the counter.

He squeezed the bread as a small child might squeeze their stuffed animal. It did little to comfort him. In fact, the crunch and crisp sound of it only made him more hyper aware of the thing hovering beyond the kitchen counter.

There was a glow, not unlike the toothy mystery he'd seen in the halls. This one, however, was very clearly not a set of teeth, as he could easily make out by the short distance that was the other side of the counter.

It stared at him.  _ Stared _ at him. A single, wide eye, glowing in the dark of the kitchen.

Semi sucked in a sharp breath when it moved, bobbing up and down in the dark. He tried to make out the space surrounding it, tried to get an idea of whether or not it was attached to anything else. It was close enough to see that it was, but too dark to tell what to.

The candle was on the counter behind him, beside the bread box. Slowly, but maybe not quite as steadily as he'd hoped, Semi reached for the faint light.

The eye grew just a little wider, and by the time Semi had his fingers through the handle of the candle’s stand, the eye was darting away, blinking out of sight with the sound of panicked footsteps. Semi held the candle out before him with a much faster swing of the arm, but the creature was nowhere to be seen.

That was fine. Really, it was. The fact that it ran away when he moved rather than lunging at him meant he could still make his damned sandwich in peace. Well, relative peace. 

Semi set the candle down, then the bread. When he looked over the pile of food he'd dumped on the counter, he began to wonder if going for the leftover takeout would've been the better option.

Except he'd have to heat it up, and with his luck, the microwave was probably possessed.

He pulled open the packaging of the bread, contemplating just grabbing a handful and leaving, then stilled when a scuffling sound came from behind. The noise came to a stop just as soon as he did, but he still remained unmoving. Silent. Listening.

There came a scratch, then the slide of something across the counter. Semi recalled the knife he'd tucked into his bandages in the basement, but his arm felt significantly lighter, now. When had it fallen out? When he was asleep? When he’d changed clothes?

Fuck.

There were cutting knives a short ways from his pile of food, but he couldn't possibly retrieve those without drawing the attention of whatever was behind him.

The butter knife would have to do.

He lifted it as quietly as he could manage, then spun around with the pathetic excuse for a weapon brandished before him. Maybe he'd rushed, maybe it was just a fear response, or maybe the lack of food and sleep was finally wearing on him, but the handle slipped from his fingers and the knife clattered to the floor when Semi found himself staring right into the eye from before.

It was wide, still glowing, and most certainly attached to a body. Hair fell over its vaguely human face, parting just enough to give the eye a view of Semi in front of it.

The eye rested in the center of its forehead, while the spaces on its face which would normally be reserved for eyes held nothing but sunken flesh and scars.

Maybe they weren't just scars. Maybe there were stitches involved. Semi wasn't exactly concerned with the specifics. He noted that its mouth was in the same state. Non-existent.

The eye blinked, and with its re-opening, several others followed suit. Bumps and seams along the stranger's arms and neck unfolded, acting as eyelids to the glowing peepers beneath them.

Semi backed into the counter. When the figure raised a hand, Semi caught a glimpse of another eye rested rested between its knuckles and wrist. He didn't wait to see what it planned to do with that hand, nor did he dive after the knife he'd so clumsily dropped.

He kicked at its leg, forcing it to stumble back. Semi discarded the food that he'd do desperately searched this hell house for and made for the door.

He didn't hear footsteps. No signs of the creature giving chase, but this didn't keep him from nearly stumbling over his own feet as he broke into a run and reached out for the doorknob.

The door swung open before he could even graze it. As much as Akaashi scared the living shit out of him, he prayed it would be him on the other side. He wasn't sure he could handle anyone, or any _ thing _ else right now.

What he found past the open door was not Akaashi, however. What he found, was someone he didn't recognize, with a face just as disfigured as the stranger covered in eyes.

No eyes. No mouth. Just scars, some of which were half-covered by messy, dark hair.

Semi stepped back, and  _ then _ he heard the footsteps from behind.

Panicked, he searched for another exit. Another door. An open window. Something he could throw at either of these freaks.

His candle was still on the counter. He could throw any of the food piled over there at them.

But he didn't have time to do either. Cold skin pressed against his own as the figure from the doorway curled a hand around Semi’s wrist.Semi yelled and smacked it away. He reeled back, but found himself colliding with another body. When he pushed away from  _ that, _ he caught a glimpse of eyes. Too many eyes. Eyes that blinked and shied out of sight upon meeting Semis gaze.

The cold hand was on his shoulder, then, and the next few moments were a bit of a blur, after that.

There was some struggling, some batting and hitting on Semi's end as he tried to distance himself from the eyes and mouths. The next thing he remembered was falling, and looking up to see a dark figure looming over him.

A pale green grin split through the flesh of its throat, along with others along its arms, but it was the mouth on its neck that spoke, first.

“Easy, there,” it said, voice edging on amused. It lacked the sadistic delight of Tendou's, but it sent shivers down Semi's spine, all the same. It tilted its head toward the other figure, despite having no eyes to see it or Semi with. “It looks like our resident demon could use a bit of help here, Kenma.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowee gee i sure hope those stairs don't become a problem later amirite


End file.
